{"id":305943,"date":"2026-06-13T01:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/305943\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T01:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:30:08","slug":"charlotte-county-deputies-crack-down-on-reckless-e-bike-behavior-charlotte-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/305943\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte County deputies crack down on reckless e-bike behavior | Charlotte County"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office<\/a> is cracking down on reckless e-bike riding after deputies say teenagers are ignoring traffic laws and leading them on chases.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office says some riders are repeatedly blowing through stop signs, crosswalks and ignoring pedestrians.<\/p>\n

“So basically the message is, be safe, or get off the darn thing,” Chris Hall with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office shared a compilation of 911 calls and body camera video, including the arrest of a Babcock Ranch teenager after deputies say he ran from police.<\/p>\n

“This young man made a decision today, and these are the reprecussions of his decision,” a deputy said in the body camera footage.<\/p>\n

Deputies say they’re seeing more teenagers ignore traffic laws and run away from them on e-bikes, e-motos and e-scooters. The sheriff’s office says the reckless behavior is threatening public safety.<\/p>\n

“We’re seeing kids and adults get hurt,” Hall said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office released 911 calls from crashes involving e-bike riders.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Rich Tomaso has been repairing bikes for 50 years at his shop. He says a small group of people are giving the e-bike community a bad name.<\/p>\n

“I respect the kids need to go out and have fun\u2026they’re doing it the wrong way,” Tomaso said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office is encouraging parents to educate themselves about e-bike laws. It says many store-bought e-moto bikes are not street legal.<\/p>\n

“You need a motorcycle endorsement, registration, drivers license, a whole slew of things,” a deputy said in body camera footage.<\/p>\n

Tomaso says some e-bikes can be like an electric motorcycle.<\/p>\n

“That’d be the same as me buying my son a gun and telling him\u2026instead of a BB gun, here’s a nine millimeter – go out and play with that,” Tomaso said.<\/p>\n

Deputies say they want kids to have a fun summer without becoming a statistic.<\/p>\n

“It keeps everyone safer and prevents us from charging, criminally, a juvenile,” Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Dustin Paille said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office says it does not have statistics on the number of e-bike crashes or injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office is cracking down on reckless e-bike riding after deputies say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4250,3837,115],"class_list":["post-305943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}