The neighbors did not like this. Shouting matches ensued between students and homeowners. At least one student returned from class to find her tires deflated.<\/p>\n
The city responded to the tension by putting up \u201cNo e-bike parking\u201d signs on several streets.<\/p>\n
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The city of Newport Beach prohibited e-bikes on some streets around Ensign Intermediate School after neighbors complained. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn’t want it in my neighborhood either, like, I get it,\u201d said Corey Gulbranson, who got a $100 parking ticket on behalf of his daughter, one of the Ensign students detained for allegedly illegally parking her e-bike. \u201cBut at the end of the day, we’re just trying to get our kids to school on a legal mode of transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crucial teen commuting tools? Or dangerous devices?<\/p>\n
E-bikes and significantly more powerful e-motorcycles have become very popular in many Orange County suburbs, where the streets are wide, public transit is spotty, and distances are longer than some are willing to pedal on a regular bike. For teens and tweens, e-bikes provide a taste of independence. They also relieve parents of some of their driving duties. Plus, e-bikes can replace polluting cars.<\/p>\n
But their popularity has brought an alarming increase in serious injuries, especially among young riders.<\/p>\n
At Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, e-bike crashes are now sending more kids to the ER than any other cause, according to Dr. Tetsuya Takeuchi, the hospital\u2019s trauma medical director. More than 70% of those patients had some level of head injury, from minor concussions to devastating brain damage, he said, often because they were not wearing a helmet.<\/p>\n
But even Takeuchi recognizes the nearly irresistible draw of e-bikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ride one, you realize how easy it is to go everywhere with it,\u201d he said. \u200a\u201cI am not by any means surprised at how popular this is, especially amongst kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Bicycle-shaped devices\u2019<\/p>\n
Not all e-bikes are equally fast, or equally dangerous. California uses a three-tier system, developed by the bike industry, to classify e-bikes depending on:<\/p>\n
engine powermax speedwhether the bike has pedals\u00a0whether a cyclist has to use those pedals before the engine kicks in\u00a0<\/p>\n
California law prohibits children under age 16 from riding Class 3 e-bikes with engines capable of reaching 28 miles per hour. In reality, though, many kids are riding e-vehicles that go faster \u2014 in some cases, much faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lots of what I will call ‘bicycle-shaped devices’ being ridden,\u201d said Asha Weinstein Agrawal<\/a>, a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. \u201cSome of them are legal e-bikes. Some of them are not.\u201d<\/p>\n What do California laws say about e-bikes and e-motorcycles?<\/p>\n First off, all e-bikes must have pedals. California has adopted a three-tier classification system for e-bikes:<\/p>\n Type of E-BikePedal AssistSpeedAge and Helmet RequirementsClass 1YesUp to 20 mph, no throttleNo age limit. Helmet required for 17 and under.Class 2No (throttle or push button)Up to 20 mphNo age limit. Helmet required for 17 and under.Class 3YesUp to 28 mphMust be 16 or older. Helmet required for all ages.<\/p>\n Source: Go Safely California<\/a>.<\/p>\n E-motorcycles are designed primarily for off-highway use and require a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n For more information, check out Go Safely California<\/a>, a joint effort of CalTrans and the state Office of Traffic Safety.<\/p>\n Agrawal recently co-authored a 210-page report on e-bike safety<\/a>. It includes data collected from middle and high schools in Marin and San Mateo counties, which showed that only 12% of students\u2019 e-bikes fit into the legal classification system. The other 88% were more powerful than legally allowed under California law.<\/p>\n A Newport Beach Police officer tickets a middle schooler for parking her e-bike on the street across from Ensign Middle School on Sept. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n Any bicycle-shaped device that goes faster than 30 miles per hour is technically an e-motorcycle, which requires a special driver\u2019s license and, if ridden on public roads, insurance and registration.<\/p>\n Agrawal said it\u2019s hard for parents, and even police officers, to figure out what\u2019s legal and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody understands this,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n The crackdown<\/p>\n Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has taken some unusual approaches to addressing the e-bike dilemma. To date, he has pressed criminal charges \u2014 including for child endangerment \u2014 against four parents after their children were involved in collisions, all of them on e-motorcycles, not e-bikes.<\/p>\n One of those parents, a woman from Aliso Viejo, was charged with three felonies, including involuntary manslaughter, after her 14-year-old son allegedly struck and killed an 81-year-old man<\/a> while doing wheelies in the street in Lake Forest on an e-motorcycle souped up to reach 60 miles per hour. <\/p>\n People with e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos move through the long line at the Orange County District Attorney’s buyback event at Angel Stadium, Sept. 13, 2026.<\/p>\n The DA\u2019s office said it has also sent letters to retailers reminding them of a ban on selling products used to modify e-bikes to go faster than legally allowed.<\/p>\n Spitzer recently tried another novel approach<\/a>: buybacks. On a recent Sunday, hundreds of people brought their e-bikes, e-scooters and e-motos to an event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, hoping to turn them in for up to a thousand dollars in gift cards. The county event was paid for with $100,000 in asset forfeiture funds.<\/p>\n One man near the front of the line said he had arrived at 1 a.m. By the time the event started at 10 a.m., sheriff\u2019s deputies were turning people away.<\/p>\n \u201cHoly smokes,\u201d Spitzer said from behind a podium mounted in the parking lot. \u201cLook at the participation. \u2026 And you can see why, because we have a serious problem here in Orange County and across the nation with individuals who have e-bikes and e-motorcycles.\u201d<\/p>\n Spitzer spoke about the dangers, but also the attractiveness of a high-powered personal vehicle, especially for teen boys.<\/p>\n \u200a\u201cWe’re not gonna change our internal DNA about who we are as young people and the fact we wanna go places, and we wanna experiment, and quite frankly, we like fast things,\u201d he said. \u201c\u200aBut the fact of the matter is when you have a machine, and you don’t understand its capabilities, you can find yourself in harm’s way very quickly before you can control that mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n Orange County District Attorney is testing out a range of strategies to crack down on illegal e-bikes and e-motos, including a buyback event at Angel Stadium on Sept. 13, 2026.<\/p>\n Are unsafe riders \u2018ruining it for other people\u2019?<\/p>\n Paul Dumont drove to the buyback event all the way from Chatsworth in hopes of exchanging five e-bikes he had bought for his kids and grandkids.<\/p>\n \u201cThey got injured on them when we first got them, so they’ve been sitting in storage,\u201d he said of the bikes.<\/p>\n Dumont said he wished he had bought less powerful e-bikes. \u201cBut I bought them the best ones,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought they’d be better.\u201d<\/p>\n Denise Mills and her 17-year-old son Nathanael came from Torrance to turn in three e-motorcycles that he had been riding to and from his high school last year. He stopped after the school told him it was illegal. A new state law defining e-motorcycles<\/a> took effect in January.<\/p>\n A student at Ensign Middle School runs to campus after parking his e-bike at a nearby park, Sept. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was very unfortunate because it’s his primary source of transportation,\u201d Mills said. \u201cNow it’s his dad and I.\u201d<\/p>\n Nathanael said he had logged several thousand miles without an accident.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aPartially it’s, like, people ruining it for other people,\u201d he said of efforts to tighten the rules for young riders.<\/p>\n Local leaders grapple with the flood of e-bikes<\/p>\n Cities and school districts are testing a variety of approaches to decrease e-bike crashes and injuries, from prohibiting riding on sidewalks to outright bans for young riders. The Brea City Council has even discussed using police drones<\/a> to follow unsafe youth riders home in order to inform their parents.<\/p>\n In a more typical approach, the Huntington Beach City School District requires all student e-bike commuters to pass a safety course in order to get a permit to park their bike on campus. Newport-Mesa has a similar program for high schoolers.<\/p>\n Marin County limits youth under age 16 to riding Class 1 \u201cpedal-assist\u201d e-bikes<\/a>, which have motors that kick in only while pedaling, and shut off once the bike reaches 20 miles per hour. The ban on more powerful e-bikes for young riders is part of a pilot program approved by the state legislature<\/a> that sunsets in 2029.<\/p>\n At the federal level, O.C. Congressman Dave Min, D-Irvine, co-authored a bill earlier this year, the Safe SPEEDS Act<\/a>, that would develop nationwide safety standards for e-bikes, including minimum age recommendations.<\/p>\n A dilemma for parents<\/p>\n Parents of student e-bike commuters have said they do not oppose regulating the vehicles, and they want authorities to crack down on dangerous and illegal riding. But an outright ban goes too far, they\u2019ve said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI know there are kids that are a little wild,\u201d said Kellie Newcombe, whose 13-year-old daughter is still riding her pedal-assist bike from their home in Costa Mesa to Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not my child. That is not her friends. They are so ridiculously safe and by the book,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s just super frustrating that they would say every kid cannot ride an e-bike.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Newport-Mesa Unified told LAist in an email that the school district\u2019s new e-bike restrictions have gone smoothly and are helping to reinforce safety. But that is not how Gulbranson and Newcombe see it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve had my daughter intimidated by multiple neighbors now,\u201d Gulbranson said. \u201cThis whole guise of doing it under safety is totally misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n Newcombe said she worries about her daughter\u2019s safety more now that an increasing number of parents are driving their kids to school.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re in a rush because the traffic is insane,\u201d she said. Plus, her daughter now has to cross a busy street to get to campus.<\/p>\n Newcombe said she wishes the school district would work with local leaders and police to enforce e-bike rules and to create safer paths to school for responsible riders.<\/p>\n How to reach me<\/p>\n If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is @jillrep.79.<\/p>\n For instructions on getting started with Signal, see the app’s support page. <\/a> Once you’re on, you can type my username in the search bar after starting a new chat.And if you’re comfortable just reaching out by email I’m at jreplogle@scpr.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"E-bikes are OC teens\u2019 ticket to independence. But are they too dangerous? E-bikes have become very popular in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,188183,118380,3694,114237,188184,121837,188185,611,8801,2034],"class_list":["post-479781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california-e-bike-rules","tag-e-bike-ban","tag-e-bikes","tag-e-motorcycles","tag-ensign-middle-school","tag-newport-mesa-unified-school-district","tag-ocda-e-bike-buyback","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-district-attorney","tag-todd-spitzer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790720410_732_.jpeg\")
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