{"id":216786,"date":"2025-09-10T23:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216786\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:57:13","slug":"can-e-bikes-make-san-diego-kids-mobile-and-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216786\/","title":{"rendered":"Can e-bikes make San Diego kids mobile and safe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

School\u2019s out at Olympian High School<\/a> in Chula Vista, and a lot of the kids are getting on their bikes to head home. Nearly all of them carry a big battery that drives an e-bike motor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to ride home every day and I live a mile and a half away. So riding a normal bike would take very long. And it\u2019s mostly uphill,\u201d said Aidan, an Olympian High School student and e-bike rider.<\/p>\n

Electric bikes are a great way to give kids the mobility they need to be independent. They can also be dangerous, and communities are facing the challenge of how to make our streets safe for them.<\/p>\n

None of the bikers I saw leaving the Olympian High School grounds that day were popping wheelies or endangering pedestrians. But most ER doctors will tell you e-bikes are a reason why bike injuries are on the rise.<\/p>\n

The chief of trauma surgery at Scripps Mercy Hospital Dr. Vishal Bansal<\/a> said his hospital used to count e-bike and e-motorcycle injuries in the dozens every year. Now, they\u2019re counted in the hundreds.<\/p>\n

The head of trauma medicine at Rady Children\u2019s Hospital said e-bikes have made bike accidents more serious. Often it\u2019s no longer a case for the emergency room, but a case for the operating room.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost times we see bicycle injuries they don\u2019t really warrant a trauma surgeon or a trauma team to see them. But the e-bikes are much more fast, much more difficult for the kids to control. So the injuries are much more severe, especially in relation to head injuries,\u201d said Romeo Ignacio, a pediatric surgeon and trauma medical director at Rady Children\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

Dr. Romeo Ignacio, the trauma medical director at Rady Children’s Hospital sits in his office in San Diego, California on Aug. 11, 2025. <\/p>\n

E-bike motors give an electric boost to a bike\u2019s peddle action, and many bikes also have a throttle that will run it 20 miles an hour, without peddling. Class 3 e-bikes will power that pedal assist up to 28 miles per hour.<\/p>\n

Bansal this week attended a press conference with law enforcement, pointing out the potential danger of electric two-wheelers. He and Dr. Ignacio said e-bikes can go even faster when they\u2019re \u201cmods,\u201d bikes with modified motors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might sell a bike that has a limit of 20-25 miles an hour. I guarantee you these kids are going to modify it to go faster,\u201d Bansal said.<\/p>\n

Making streets safe for e-bikes<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to find people who are concerned about e-bikes and adults who want to grumble about kids riding them irresponsibly.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t speak to anyone who thought they could just wish e-bikes away. Most people seemed to agree that education was key to keeping kids safe. And that\u2019s what cycling instructor Jeffrey Schnure tries to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think e-bikes are great because they really improve people\u2019s mobility options, whether you\u2019re a child and you may not be able to get up a hill, instead of having to dismount and walk up, you can just bike right up,\u201d Schnure said.<\/p>\n

Schnure was one of the instructors who showed up in a parking lot Saturday morning in Solana Beach. About 10 kids, most of them with e-bikes, also came with their parents to learn how to ride them safely.<\/p>\n

The class last weekend was hosted by the San Diego County Bike Coalition<\/a> and the city of Solana Beach. It began indoors with a class, relevant to any biker trying to navigate local streets.<\/p>\n

An instructor showed slides of streets and traffic scenarios. Questions included: How do you make a left turn on a multi-lane road? How do you stay out of the door zone, where a car door thrown open can endanger a cyclist?<\/p>\n

Outside, kids practiced some cycling drills before they all went for a short road trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing that makes you the most safe as a cyclist is being conspicuous and being predictable,\u201d Schnure said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes being conspicuous means taking the whole traffic lane a car would occupy. That can be done more easily with an e-bike, which can better match the speed of a car.<\/p>\n

Cycling instructor Ron Dashwood uses an example from his home town of Encinitas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you\u2019re on residential streets, the speed limit is 20 miles an hour. A class-1 e-bike can go 20 miles an hour. So you can be taking the lane on a residential street and you\u2019re going the speed limit,\u201d Dashwood said.<\/p>\n

The greater speed of an e-bike doesn\u2019t always make them more dangerous. Yes, the higher speed can cause more serious injuries in a crash. But the slow pace of a conventional bike also presents a risk.<\/p>\n

Chloe Lauer, executive director of the San Diego County Bike Coalition, says the better ability of an e-bike to match the speed of a car, means it is less likely to collide with one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there is less of a speed differential there is less chance of a crash, and the higher the speed differential the higher there is a chance of a crash,\u201d Lauer said.<\/p>\n

Lauer said Dashwood\u2019s example of an e-bike going 20 miles per hour on a residential street is a good rule to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the bike coalition we advocate for \u201820 is plenty.\u2019 This minimizes the speed differential between car drivers and other road users,\u201d Lauer said. \u201cAnd in places where there\u2019s a lot of pedestrian activity we think that\u2019s a really good model,\u201d<\/p>\n

The best way for kids to get around?<\/b><\/p>\n

Ella Gutman is a North County teenager who took the cycling class in Solana Beach. She said her e-bike has given her a sense of responsibility and independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really fun, as a kid, because I can\u2019t go that many places far away by myself, because I can\u2019t drive and stuff. But with electric vehicles, like e-bikes it\u2019s a lot easier to do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ella\u2019s dad, Tomer Gutman, said it took a while before he was comfortable with Ella on an e-bike. But he sees the upside now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the child can take care of themselves and go to afterschool activities and friends, it\u2019s going to help parents, myself and my wife, to address other things instead of just being a taxi driver all afternoon!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But how young is too young to operate an e-bike?<\/p>\n

The City of Carlsbad will hold a meeting next week to determine whether it should prohibit the use of e-bikes for kids under age 12. Chula Vista has done that already.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"School\u2019s out at Olympian High School in Chula Vista, and a lot of the kids are getting on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-216786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-sandiego","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115182714901452075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}