After a typical school day, teenage students in Coronado mount their bikes – electric ones – and in a matter of seconds roll onto a densely commuted Orange Ave.
It is an idyllic island scene, but one fraught with peril and controversy as electric bicycle sales proliferate and injury accidents soar nationwide.
The concern in Coronado – especially for children – is so great that the city created an e-bike working group to study safety issues and the Police Department operates a diversion program for juveniles who get traffic tickets.
Meanwhile, a state Assembly bill introduced this year could allow cities to change electric bike ordinances and requirements.
“I think the main concern is with the children,” said Councilman Mike Donovan, during a recent meeting at City Hall. “Two, three people on an e-bike flying down the road, some have a helmet some don’t…”
Coronado is not alone in trying to confront electric vehicle dangers: In the last two years, coastal cities in the northern region of San Diego County declared local emergencies following deadly e-bike crashes.
Known as a vacation hub, Coronado offers paradise scenery along cycling routes, including the Bayshore Bikeway that runs through Silver Strand Blvd.
Coronado’s Mobility Commission chair, Robin Hagemann, told the council that intersections along the Silver Strand have some of the highest incidents.
However, she pointed out, e-bikes ridership has also proliferated among the elderly and people with physical challenges, and adult riders account for a majority of the emergency responses.
It’s not the kids that have the largest number of incidents on e-bikes – the accidents and the fall-downs, Hagemann said.
Acceleration and speed concerns
Over the past decade, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, the popularity of e-bikes has surged for recreational users and commuters. The electric power increases speed and reduces physical demands on riders, especially in hilly areas, according to surveys conducted by Portland State University.
A 2023 report by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says the estimated number of emergency department visits by injured e-bike riders rose accordingly – from 3,500 in 2017 to 24,400 in 2022. That’s nearly a 600% increase over six years.
Dr. Romeo Ignacio, trauma medical director at Rady Children’s Hospital, said the surge seems to be continuing at his medical center, which treats severely injured patients.
“We recently did a combined study looking at e-bike injuries, not only for pediatrics but for adults among the five trauma centers here in San Diego,” said Ignacio. “When we looked at that data, we are now seeing up to 250 cases from last year alone.”
“E-bikes are great, but there also has to be a safety component parents need to be aware of,” he added.
Ignacio said e-bikes have significant acceleration rates which may exceed a young child’s ability to react at speeds above 25 mph – especially if they are distracted by surroundings or cellphones.
And the latter is a concern echoed by another doctor, from Massachusetts, who spends close to half of the year in Coronado.
Richard Susskind said he began researching e-bikes after almost being hit by one earlier this year.
In an open letter to parents, submitted to The Coronado News, Susskind compared electric bicycles to small motorcycles.
“There has been an explosion of their use here in the past three years with kids as young (and inexperienced) as 10 years old riding on sidewalks and streets, putting pedestrians and themselves in danger,” he wrote. “I have had to dodge out of the way of them numerous times. They seem to have no knowledge of rules of the road and a few times I came close to hitting one of them with my car as they shoot around at about 30 mph.”
Susskind said he believes there should be licensing requirements and a minimum age of 16 to assure kids are safer than they are now, before any of them get killed.
“Wake up parents!” he concluded.
E-Bike classifications
City Council members created the Mobility Commission in 2019 to study regulations, traffic design and enforcement policies.
At a meeting in March, the commission delivered an annual report and the council called for continued work on the area of e-bikes, especially following the Port of San Diego’s new regulations for motorized mobility devices, including e-bikes, along the San Diego Bay waterfront.
“The thing that’s tied our hands is that the state of California classifies an e-bike as a regular bike so we literally can’t go and make up special requirements because it would have to fall under the DMV,” Councilman Donovan noted.
The Department of Motor Vehicles says California law currently prohibits persons under 16 from operating a Class 3 electric bicycle and uses the following to categorize each class:
- Class 1: A low speed pedal-assisted electric bicycle equipped with a motor which provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and ceases assistance when a speed of 20 mph is reached.
- Class 2: A low speed throttle-assisted electric bicycle equipped with a motor used exclusively to propel the bicycle and not capable of exceeding 20 mph.
- Class 3: A low speed pedal-assisted electric bicycle equipped with a speedometer, and a motor which provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and ceases to provide assistance when a speed of 28 mph is reached.
State law does not set a minimum age for the first two categories.
In February, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, who represents coastal cities in San Diego County, announced the introduction of AB 2234 looking to add safety measures for e-bike operators, according to a press release from Feb. 9.
“Owning and riding an e-bike is a big responsibility, and it is crucial that children and their parents understand the liability they take on when they get on an e-bike that can go nearly 30 miles per hour,” Boerner said. “As an avid cyclist and a mother, my goal is to ensure that California’s young riders are educated on the rules of the road to increase their safety and the safety of other road users.”
As introduced, the bill would prohibit children under age 12 from operating any class of e-bike. Those over age 12 who do not have a driver’s license would be required to obtain a state identification card, take a class and pass a test on laws and safety.
Kids safety
Hagemann noted that speed limits on Bayshore Bikeway are 20 mph.
“Some of these kids have actually set their bikes to the exact miles per hour that they’re allowed,” she said at the March city council meeting.
Hagemann discussed the commission’s preparedness of what steps law enforcement can take to reduce the problem, and also the cost to Coronado in dealing with e-bike incidents.
“It’s the adults that are actually costing the city a pretty penny,” Hagemann told the council in closing remarks. “If you want to follow it all the way up, it’s the adults that are giving the kids the e-bikes.”
Councilmember Donovan observed, “I’m frankly not worried about costs…I’m worried about kids that are going to hurt themselves because they’re too stupid to understand that if you’re going 30 miles an hour and you don’t have your hands on the handlebars or you’re looking around listening to your phone, you’re going to get killed…”
During that same meeting last month, Councilmember John Duncan described a personal experience as he was leaving the yacht club in his car.
“I looked right, no bike. I looked left, no bike,” said Duncan. “I started to go forward, smashed my brakes immediately, almost hit a young lady (who) never turned her head towards me…[the bike] had to be going the maximum. It was so fast it was startling, faster than cars.”
According to Hagemann, Boerner’s bill and other articles will be reviewed in April during the next commission meeting, which are normally scheduled on the second Thursday of each month at 3 p.m. in the City Council chambers.
E-Bike, transportation and independence
Meanwhile, some students in Coronado consider e-bikes a necessary vehicle for the morning commute to school, cutting their travel time by up to one hour each morning.
On a Thursday afternoon in mid-March, two friends weave through the Hotel Del’s driveway heading towards the Silver Strand Bike Path and eventually to the Cays.
The fifth-grade and seventh-grade students told The Coronado News they make their way from home to school on their e-bikes taking them 15 minutes, just on time to arrive before their school gates close.
When asked if they are ever worried for their safety while riding their e-bikes, the students said they have the “safe version,” pointing out that they know they cannot ride a class 3.
From February 2021 through March 2024, the Coronado Police Department reports 15 e-bike traffic collisions with the majority involving minor injuries and only three occurring before noon.
For bike citations, which the department does not make a distinction between e-bikes and regular bicycles, over 50% of bicycle citations and warnings that the Police Department has given in the last five years involve minors under 18 riding without a helmet who live in Coronado, according to data provided by Police Records Specialist Jennifer Reloj.
The data shows stop sign violations and riding on the sidewalk in the business district as other reasons for being cited.
A University of California’s tool on crash and injury data, that pulls from the state traffic records, says that as of March 9, 2024, there was an average of 751 in bicyclist fatalities and injuries, encompassing fatalities and any level of injuries, in San Diego county for the last five years.
According to one emergency medicine doctor in Coronado, in serious accidents with injuries involving brain bleeding or fractures, patients are transferred to trauma hospitals – usually Sharp Memorial Hospital or Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, he said.
Sharp Coronado Hospital Emergency Department Director Dr. William Bianchi said he has seen plenty of emergency department visits related to e-bikes, scooters and hoverboards in his clinical experience but no deaths in Coronado.
And while Sharp Coronado Hospital does not track statistics on ER data visits related to e-bikes, Bianchi shared that he has seen both kid and adult patients following e-bike accidents.
According to Bianchi, one Navy male in his late twenties was riding an e-bike at about 25-30 miles an hour on the strand when his handlebars became loose and turned causing him to go over the front of the bike.
“He got very lucky,” Bianchi said. “He was wearing a helmet, which a lot of people don’t.”
According to state traffic records data, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties – in that order – have the highest fatality and injury rates.
And in San Diego County, the number of fatalities and injuries among juveniles more than doubled from 49 to 135 in the last five years.
“An e-bike is not the same as a beach cruiser, the speed, maneuverability and the risk changes significantly,” said Bianchi. “If you injure a brain when it’s still developing, it can have implications for how that brain forms into an adult brain.”
Correction: The most recent version of this story was updated to reflect the correct speed limit on Bayshore Bikeway, which is 20 mph, according to Hagemann.
