A chase that led to arrests of two youths on Tuesday has Calgary police sounding the alarm about a rising number of instances of teenagers endangering neighbourhoods by riding high-powered e-bikes illegally on sidewalks.<\/p>\n
“We’ve heard a lot of complaints and have been asked a lot of questions lately about electric scooters and electric motorbikes, collectively known as prohibited vehicles or micro mobility devices,” Insp. Robbie Patterson, CPS Traffic Section, told media on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“This is not just a local, but an issue in communities across Canada.”<\/p>\n
Most recently, on Tuesday, CPS arrested two of three youth, who, police allege, were performing stunts and riding electric dirt bikes “dangerously” in the southwest community of Coach Hill until approximately 1:30 a.m. The riders fled after being asked to stop by the officers.<\/p>\n
Police helicopters eventually helped the officers track the riders as they sped through neighbourhoods. Both arrested suspects are now facing charges of dangerous operation of a vehicle and flight from police.<\/p>\n
In another incidence on Aug. 8, police charged a 16-year-old with dangerous driving after they rode their bike at 70 km\/h on walking paths, green spaces and on the wrong side of the road in the northwest community of Citadel. Police also issued seven tickets to the rider, who did not have a proper license, insurance or registration.<\/p>\n
“A few years ago, this was not an issue,” Patterson said. “Now we see them just about everywhere.”<\/p>\n
Patterson blamed the problem on an increasing variety of e-bikes that have flooded the market.<\/p>\n
Amazon listed nearly 750 electric bikes, scooters and trikes by 67 brands as of May, according to Street Rides, a Canadian-based e-bike and e-scooter retailer.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Temu displayed over 1,400 similar items, bringing the total stock of items to 2,000 before considering specific e-bike retailers like Surron, big box giants like Walmart and Canadian Tire or other drop-shipping based stores like Alibaba.<\/p>\n
“We understand the technology is changing, and there are more riding options now,” he said. “But new tech also means new rules, and everyone needs to follow them.”<\/p>\n
According to the Alberta Traffic Safety Act, a legal e-bike, or power-assisted bicycle, has a maximum speed of 32 km\/h, a 500 or smaller wattage electric motor and must have pedals. These types of bikes can be used on sidewalks, but pedal-assist cannot be engaged.<\/p>\n
Anyone riding a power-assisted bike \u2014 the types offered by Neuron and Bird’s sharing services in Calgary \u2014 must wear a helmet and be at least 12 years old.<\/p>\n
A bike that tops out at 70 km\/h is considered a limited speed motorcycle, or moped, and requires a Class 7 licence, insurance and a helmet. Anything that travels over 70 km\/h is considered a motorcycle.<\/p>\n
Calgary’s pathways allow power-assisted bicycles, but riders must maintain a maximum speed of 20 km\/h. A limited speed motorcycle must remain on the roadway and follow the same rules as a vehicle.<\/p>\n
A CPS spokesperson said it is hard to track data on rising complaints since they mainly fall under bylaw violations. Their traffic violation data also doesn’t differentiate between other breaches and those involving e-bikes.<\/p>\n
Patterson said police currently use several laws under the Traffic Safety Act to enforce the rules. However, he added, police are “struggling with some of those pieces to put them in place.”<\/p>\n
Patterson said officers are also exploring ways to hold adults who provide those bikes to the youth accountable.<\/p>\n
“So if we were to be able to to prove a case that a parent or other adult or other individual knowingly provided that device to somebody and they were seriously injured or killed, or they seriously injured or killed somebody else, they absolutely could be investigated, charged under criminal negligence,” he added.<\/p>\n
Evanston-Creekside Community Association has had several issues with a group of youths riding Surron e-motorbikes through the community park and on roadways since 2025. Surron Canada’s website offers models with top speeds of 60 km\/h to 110 km\/h.<\/p>\n
Mike Stiles, president of the Evanston-Creekside Community Association, said in June riders have caused extensive property damage, costing the non-profit community association thousands of dollars to repair.<\/p>\n
“We do have elderly people that walk at the park and they’re scared when those kids are around because they are reckless,” Stiles added.<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from Payton Delisle-Miller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A chase that led to arrests of two youths on Tuesday has Calgary police sounding the alarm about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,1054,11372,55579,48793,42472,55580,55581,55578],"class_list":["post-174724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-police","tag-cps","tag-dirt-bikes","tag-e-bikes","tag-electric-motor","tag-electric-motorbikes","tag-police-helicopters","tag-robbie-patterson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}