Marin officials sound alarm on e-bike risks

Marin County’s public health office, urging caution in the use of electrically powered bicycles, has introduced an online “dashboard” that displays local emergency calls for bicycle accidents.

The staff reported that nine out of 41 emergency responses to bicycle accidents between Oct. 10 and Nov. 10 involved e-bikes, and noted that 71% of the 911 calls for riders ages 10 to 19 were related to e-bikes. In contrast, only 12% of accidents among riders 20 and older involved e–bikes.

“It’s generally a good thing that kids are getting on the bikes, including e-bikes,” said Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s public health officer. “But the concern is that we’re seeing an upward trend in accidents, especially in school-aged kids, and those are almost all related to e-bike use.”

Willis presented data on bicycle accidents and the new dashboard during a recent teleconference with education and law enforcement officials.

“Our data suggests that e-bike safety among young people is our highest priority,” Willis said at the meeting.

Concerns over e-bike safety in the county have mounted over the past few years. Last year, a 63-year-old man died after being struck by an e-bicyclist on the Mill Valley-Sausalito Pathway, and Mill Valley adopted e-bike restrictions that included a ban from sidewalks. The ordinance prompted Novato officials to consider similar regulations.

Marin County Supervisor Mary Sackett said that two MarinHealth trauma surgeons have noticed an upward trend of e-bike related injuries since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“Marin has always had bicycle accidents in their trauma unit,” she said. “They looked at the data and saw an increase in numbers in e-bike injuries and they brought it to my attention and public health’s attention.”

Sackett, who regularly commutes on an e-bike, said she is particularly concerned about teenagers riding class 2 e-bikes, which have throttles and travel faster than the class 1 bikes that only operate their electric motors when the rider is pedaling. She asked Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, to amend a state law to prohibit minors under age 16 from operating class 2 e-bikes.

“When you give a middle school-aged kid a throttle and they don’t have to pedal and they’ve never driven before, they don’t have a more comprehensive understanding of the rules of the road than those of us who have driven and been on an e-bike,” she said.

The county’s public health office issued four e-bike safety recommendations for families: always wear a helmet; have passengers wear helmets and properly sit on the e-bike seat; obey road rules; and avoid purchasing class 2 or 3 e-bikes if the rider is a novice.

Class 3 bikes can travel up to 28 mph and are restricted to riders ages 16 or older in California.

During the bike safety teleconference, panelists shared their experiences and ideas for promoting e-bike safety in the county.

Mill Valley police Chief Rick Navarro emphasized his staff’s policy of educating young riders. Juvenile offenders of his city’s bicycle ordinance can take a safety class held by the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, instead of getting a citation.

“What we don’t want to do is get our youth that might be 10, 12 or 14 years old involved in the criminal justice system, and so we looked at other avenues where we might have restorative interventions,” he said.

Mill Valley police Lt. Shaun McCracken said in an email that his department has issued 52 citations this year for violations of the city’s e-bike ordinance. He noted that 11 juvenile offenders finished the first e-bike safety course that started in September, and 11 more are enrolled in a class that begins next month.

Gwen Froh of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, who is the director of the Safe Routes to School program, said at the teleconference that speed is the top reason for injuries and deaths. Other concerns include riders recklessly traveling on sidewalks and not wearing helmets.

Froh said that she does not recommend class 2 e-bikes for children under age 16.

“Parents said they’re basically mini-motorcycles and they got hoodwinked into buying one,” she said.

Froh said it’s ultimately up to parents to decide if their children are prepared for riding e-bikes.

Tarrell Kullaway, a San Anselmo Town Council member and the executive director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, said the area lacks safe infrastructure for bicyclists. She said also that her organization teen e-bike safety education program might not continue because initial county funding for its pilot project ran out.

Kullaway said that the county’s new dashboard on bicycle crashes is a good start, but she had questions about the data. She wanted to know how the number of crashes compares to the total number of people riding bicycles in the county.

“We don’t know if this represents 0.00001% of the people riding bikes or if it’s 90% of the people riding bikes,” Kullaway said. “We call on agencies to collect better data on how many people are actually riding bikes.”

In a followup interview, Willis said that the dashboard report’s accident rate is based on the number of accidents in any age group versus the total number of that group of people living in the county.

“There are, of course, accidents that don’t lead to 911 calls, and those are not included,” he said. “The intent of the dashboard is describing patterns and trends, and no one system captures every accident.”

Brett Thurber, a co-owner of the New Wheel, an e-bike company that has a store in Larkspur, said his main safety concerns are with e-bikes that are poorly built or adjusted bicycles that don’t give riders adequate control.

“There are novices who haven’t been on a bike in 10 years and the first bike they get hasn’t been set up by a mechanic, and they set it up themselves out of a box,” Thurber said. “It’s low-priced, so the motor assist is not super smooth, and the brakes are not adjusted, and now they’re heading down the road at 20 mph and sometimes 28 mph.”

He said that his staff has customers perform test drives on e-bikes before purchases.

“It’s the equivalent of buying a car, you’re not just seeing it online, buying it, and hoping that it fits you,” Thurber said.

The state should offer more support for e-bike use among youths, he said.

“I think it’s positive that kids are not driving cars and are not interested in cars, and are instead riding bikes,” Thurber said. “We need to say we want this to happen, we just need it to happen right so let’s figure out how to make it good.”