Submitted by John Allen
E-mobility Crisis
E-bikes have gained popularity over the past few years due largely to modern-day battery improvements that have made them more practical. E-bike operating characteristics fall between those of conventional bicycles and lightweight gasoline-powered two-wheelers.
In the decade starting in 2010, PeopleforBikes, the bicycle industry lobbying organization, proposed to define three classes of e-bikes as bicycles. All must have functional pedals and a motor-power limit of 750 watts (slightly more than one horsepower).
Most states have adopted the three classes, but In 2022, Massachusetts legislators cautiously recognized only classes 1 and 2—see https://www.massbike.org/ebikes. Also, e-bikes are prohibited on sidewalks, and communities may set additional restrictions on off-road use. A machine whose performance exceeds legal e-bike limits may fit into a different category if correctly equipped, but it can’t legally go many places where bicycles or even e-bikes can.
Use and Abuse
E-bikes can be very useful for people who need a power boost due to age, infirmity or terrain, are transporting children or heavy cargo, or just want to arrive without working up a sweat. But e-bikes are heavier and less nimble than conventional bicycles, and give a gift of speed to people with little experience.
It is fair to say that the bicycle industry’s 3-class system promoted sales, while turning a blind eye to some foreseeable consequences. Hacking e-bikes to further increase speed and power is common. The Internet offers “e-motos”—machines that can be disguised by retailers to look like e-bikes, but go faster, usually much faster.
Safe operation of a legal e-bike requires skills beyond those for a conventional bicycle. E-bikes with throttles, and illegal e-motos, are even more demanding. They are especially popular with teenagers, who hound their parents to buy them one. Internet influencers promote e-bikes and e-motos, making a play on teenage rebellion with a promise of independence and freedom. In this example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgesHBW1LNM), a teenager shifts abruptly from life in front of a display screen to real traffic in the real world. The beleaguered helicopter parent goes off duty as the teenager rides away.
Crash Numbers Tell the Story
Serious problems are occurring nationwide. Hospitals are seeing increasing numbers of emergency room visits and admissions related to these machines. A national trend upward in reported bicyclist fatalities is driven mostly by those involving machines with motors.
National trends in bicyclist fatalities. Motorized bicycles account for most of the increase over pre-Covid levels. Source: NHTSA FARS (Fatal Accident Reporting System); graph prepared by Mighk Wilson of MetroPlan Orlando for a Webinar, https://cyclingsavvy.org/2025/06/data-driven-planning-for-bicycling/.
Some Examples
While riding my bicycle—legally—in downtown Waltham, on Thursday, June 2, I saw a young man circling blocks on sidewalks, at 20 mph or more, past storefronts where people could walk out. He was not pedaling. He rode past me three times on different streets. One time, I called out "hold it." I couldn't block him and he kept going. I gave the description to the police, but what could they do?
Serious e-bike crashes are occurring all around Massachusetts, as a quick Web search will reveal.
E- scooters represent another facet of the same problem. The small wheels make for a less secure ride and if a foot slips off, the rider loses control. A very serious collision between two kids on a scooter and a car has been reported in the Waltham Times (https://walthamtimes.org/2025/07/26/two-hospitalized-with-severe-injuries-after-vehicle-and-scooter-collide/). This collision proved fatal to one of the scooter riders.
The current crisis is fundamentally a behavior problem. Riders of gasoline-powered mopeds have coexisted with other road users for many decades. But now, two-wheelers with similar performance are available outside the framework of driver training, licensing, registration and equipment standards.
What can be done about this problem? It can be addressed in several ways, and needs to be addressed in all of them.
Law Enforcement
Police Department of the City of Waltham, where I reside, has posted a warning about e-bikes , e-motos and electric scooters to parents on Facebook. This is welcome.
Still, because of the novelty of electric two-wheelers and the difficulty of identifying illegal ones, law enforcement has difficulty in addressing the issue. And a police cruiser’s giving chase to an e-biker who can take flight off road is futile. A targeted enforcement or plain clothes operation could work.
Massachusetts law enforcement has the laws to enforce safer behavior, but e-motos should require driver training, registration and licensing, backed up by enforcement against violators. Law enforcement has not been learning about innovative resources to address the problem effectively. I can hope that this situation will improve. I suggest that law enforcement reach out to nationally recognized experts in electric bicycle laws and safe use – whether in or associated with law enforcement – for professional development training opportunities.
Can Infrastructure Help?
The increasing mileage of paths, bike lanes, and handicap ramps at crosswalks has bred a population of bicyclists, and now e-bikers, who fear riding on roads, also fueling motorists’ expectation not to have to share road space. But special bikeways will never go everywhere, and aren’t acceptably safe at the speeds e-bikes can attain, even less so e-motos. Continuing to install bikeways based on a vision of 1970s bicycling in Amsterdam is not going to meet this challenge. Traffic management, traffic calming and through routes on streets with low traffic volume work better at e-bike speeds.
The town of Lexington has established a 15 mph speed limit on the Minuteman Rail Trail. This makes a statement, but the basic speed limit which applies everywhere is “no faster than safe under the conditions at the time and place.” On a rail trail crowded with pedestrians, that may be no faster than walking speed.
Downhill eastbound on much of the Rail Trail in Waltham, and on descents from overpasses, or for fit bicyclists, a fixed speed limit may be seen as an annoyance. But people who want to go faster than is safe on a trail need to be riding on streets instead. This is safe for bicyclists with appropriate skills: my own record is zero collisions in the 38 years I have lived in Waltham. Few bicyclists will exceed the 25 mph default speed limit on Waltham streets.
A positive incentive is to offer off-street opportunities for young riders to perform. We can draw the wheelie poppers out of intersections if they must keep a clean street and path record to participate in stunt-riding and racing events. This approach has worked for skateboarding right here in Waltham with the Kotoujian Skateboard Park.
Education
Education is an important part of the solution, maybe the most important part. Young people need to learn the rules of the road and the skills to operate a bicycle—and once mature enough—an e-bike, car or motorcycle safely. We are far in the USA from implementing meaningful traffic education in the public schools, so the task falls mostly on nonprofits and community activists.
This needs to be a serious effort—real driver training. Teaching rules of the road and reciting slogans will not overcome influencers' power over teen brains. Teaching young people skills that help them resist influencers and peer pressure can be effective. Arrests and mindless punishment of riders only confirms for them that they need to be outlaws.
Education can be a community effort and is practical if there is enough concern and interest. Public-safety campaigns, bicycle rodeos community rides and club rides that welcome e-bikes—as CRW does—can spread and promote responsible and safe cycling.
Looking more widely, a fine online resource for young people is the online Teen Ebike Training course from the American Bicycling Education Association (https://teenebiketraining.com). ABEA’s CyclingSavvy program has online courses for adults (https://cyclingsavvy.org/online-bicycle-education/), including the PowerSavvy course specifically for e-bike riders. As an instructor in ABEA’s CyclingSavvy course, which includes on-bike practice sessions, and I expect to have a course in the spring. CyclingSavvy welcomes e-bikers, and teens if accompanied by a parent.
Parents who ride well themselves are the most effective teachers of their offspring, but even parents who do not ride can benefit from online resources. I suggest a fine book, The Caring Parent’s E-Bike Survival Guide (https://bellemontproject.com/parents).
Looking to the Future
Many newer motor vehicles already have automated emergency steering and braking, directed by sensors that look in every direction at the same time. In the longer term, I expect autonomous vehicles greatly to reduce many kinds of motorist-caused crashes. Still, the laws of physics apply, and there is no way even an autonomous vehicle can avoid a hazard that appears suddenly and unexpectedly.
Two-wheelers are not as amenable to full autonomy as dual-track vehicles: pedestrians even less so, and all will still need to obey the rules of the road to coexist.
Also, most crashes that send cyclists to the hospital do not involve a motor vehicle at all. Skills training and helmet campaigns reduce the toll of these as well.
So, ultimately: It’s on us now—as community leaders, e-bike riders or parents—to deal with the issues as best you can.
Thank you for the opportunity to state my case.
I thank Keri Caffrey, Beth Black, Clint Sandusky and Maureen Brennan for help with this article.
