With Kate Ruder
LOUISVILLE, Colo. — Colorado E-Bike Sales Manager Perry Fletcher said his sales and repair shop has seen an increase in back-to-school sales to young riders and families this fall as the popularity of battery-powered bikes takes off.
But kids’ excitement about their new rides is tempered by a recurring question from concerned parents: Are they safe?
This can be a difficult question to answer. Federal government regulations for e-bikes are sparse, and efforts to expand them have stalled, leaving states and even counties to fill the gap with their own patchwork of rules. Meanwhile, the seemingly endless variety of e-bikes for sale varies in design, speed and quality.
In this environment, retailers like Fletcher aim to educate consumers so they can make informed decisions.
“We’re very careful about what comes into the store because there are risks,” he said.
The federal rules that require safety standards for batteries on e-bikes and other devices such as e-scooters are in limbo after the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the independent federal regulatory agency designed to protect people from death and injury from bicycles and other consumer products, withdrew the proposed settings in August.
The committee then sent the rules for review by the Office of Intelligence and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget, responding to President Donald Trump’s remarks in February. executive order requiring independent agencies like the CPSC to align more closely with White House priorities. In May, Trump fired three committee members appointed by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Meantime, separate proposed rules by the Committee on Mechanical Injuries have languished. Shira Rawlinson, CPSC’s director of communications, said she plans to update the status of both proposed rules.
That leaves e-bikes subject to existing standards written for traditional bikes that the Commission said, based on a preliminary assessment, are not sufficient to reduce the risk of injuries from e-bikes. Colorado, Minnesotaand Jute they recently passed laws regulating e-bikes to fill the gap.
The laws address issues such as battery fire hazards and rider safety, and seek to distinguish lower-speed e-bikes from faster e-motos, or electric motorcycles, which can reach top speeds of 35 miles per hour or faster. No federal law dictates the age at which someone can operate an e-bike, but more than half of the states have age restrictions on who can operate Category 3 bikeswhich reach a top speed of 28 miles per hour, while two California counties recently set a minimum age to operate Class 2 bicycles, with a top speed of 20 mph.
“The biggest problem is e-bikes that change from a motorized bicycle to essentially a motorized scooter,” said Democratic state Rep. Lesley Smith, who co-sponsored the Colorado bill.
Colorado’s e-bike law requires safety certification of lithium-ion batteries, which can explode when improperly manufactured or used. They caused 39 deaths and 181 injuries among people using micro-mobility devices such as e-bikes from 2019 to 2023, according to the CPSC.
Most dealers, importers and distributors have agreed to use batteries that meet safety standards, but there will always be manufacturers who limit safety to save money, said Ed Benjamin, president of the Light Electric Vehicle Association, whose hundreds of members supply light electric vehicles such as e-bikes or their parts.
“There are some people out there who don’t care what’s right. They just want to make the cheapest bike possible,” Benjamin said.
Amy Thompson, the Safe Routes to School program coordinator for the Boulder Valley School District, said education officials are trying to install more bike racks at many schools to address the increase in e-bike use.
Students use them to get to school or activities quickly and carry their sports equipment or instruments with ease, Thompson said. He said he has seen some disturbing behavior such as students riding three to a bike, cycling without helmets or attempting electric scooters spread by social media.
Thompson said children disable the speed limiter on e-bikes to operate at higher speeds. “It’s very easy for kids to go on YouTube and find a video that will walk you through how to override or disable the governor on a bike,” he said.
Thomson informed the parents to monitor their children’s e-bikes in September and described her blurred lines between e-bikes and e-motos last fall.
These blurred lines overwhelm e-bike classification system adopted, in part or in full, by nearly all states, in which e-bike motors must generally operate at 750 watts or lower. Class 1 e-bikes use pedal assist and must not exceed 20 mph. Class 2 e-bikes include a throttle and also must not exceed 20 mph. and Class 3 e-bikes use pedal assist that must not exceed 28 mph.
Some e-bikes easily switch between Class 2 and 3, sometimes without parents’ knowledge, said Smith, the Colorado lawmaker. A California parent sued an e-bike manufacturer last year, saying it falsely advertised as Class 2 an e-bike that could be upgraded to Class 3.
The dangers of Class 2 e-bikes prompted Marin County, California to ban on children under 16 years of age from their operation and require anyone riding it to wear a helmet. Young people aged 10 to 15 who crash their e-bikes need an ambulance five times the rate of other age groups involved in e-bike accidents, according to county health officials. An increasing number of serious injuries on e-bikes, particularly among teenagers, is an emerging public safety problem, the American College of Surgeons he said in June.
Talia Smith, Marin County legislative director, defended California law which allows Marin County to impose age restrictions. But after hearing from a dozen other counties facing similar problems, he said state lawmakers should move toward a statewide law from piecemeal, county-by-county ordinances. San Diego County prohibits riders under 12 years of age from operating category 1 or 2 bicycles.
Vehicles that claim to be both e-bikes and e-motos fall through the cracks between two regulatory agencies, the CPSC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Matt Moore, general and policy counsel for PeopleForBikes, a bicycle trade association, including e-bikes.
PeopleForBikes wants the traffic safety administration to stop shipments or take other legal action against e-motos labeled as e-bikes that don’t meet federal standards, Moore said.
If the federal government doesn’t act, states will have to clarify their laws to define e-motos as off-road dirt bikes or motorized vehicles that require permits, he said. In October, California designated e-motoswhich requires displaying an identification plate issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles for off-highway use.
In Boulder, Thompson said, the school district considers communication and education cornerstones of safety. Children and teenagers need to learn and practice the rules of the road, whether they’re moving two wheels with their own feet or with the accelerator, he said.
“E-bikes are fun, environmentally friendly and relatively cheap to transport. So how can we make them safer and more sustainable for families?” Thompson said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth health journalism and is one of KFF’s core operating programs—an independent source of research, polling and journalism on health policy. Learn more about KFF.
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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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