BOERNE, Texas \u2014 Boerne resident Luis Mendoza has an e-bike, his only means of personal transportation.<\/p>\n
Mendoza says he is overly cautious, but the bike goes 34 miles per hour, which is pretty fast. He\u2019s also been told that his bike doesn\u2019t require a license, registration or license plate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to the official, and the official said, \u2018You don\u2019t need registration, just take care,\u2019\u201d Mendoza said.<\/p>\n
While Mendoza\u2019s e-bike seems to be street legal, the Boerne Police Department said that\u2019s not the case with every e-bike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s different classifications of e-bikes: Class 1, Class 2, Class 3. The Class 3 is when you start getting into more faster type bikes,\u201d said Boerne Police Chief Steve Perez.<\/p>\n
Police in Boerne are seeing more of those faster bikes driven by children under the age of 15 and in areas where they\u2019re not allowed to be driving. The police department recently sent out a Facebook message reminding residents of the laws and potential penalties for not following them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more powerful you get, the more limits you\u2019re going to have on where you can ride those bikes, and I think that\u2019s where people are getting held up on,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n
Perez said the confusion about these e-bikes is pretty common, and his department just wants people safe, whether they\u2019re on an e-bike or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d rather be doing this message now while our numbers are low or zero versus we\u2019re here because we\u2019ve had 50 accidents of people seriously injured,\u201d said Perez.<\/p>\n
While the City of Boerne is trying to stay in front of a potential problem, other Texas cities are also dealing with e-bike concerns. Union City and Leander have sent out messages to the public, while The Woodlands \u2014 outside of Houston \u2014 has reported roughly 40 incidents in the past nine months and dedicated a portion of a recent township meeting to the problem. It\u2019s an issue that might not be solved unless state legislators take it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil the state of Texas actually defines rules against violations, we can\u2019t take any action,\u201d said one Montgomery County Sheriff\u2019s Office lieutenant.<\/p>\n
The data points to speed and age causing issues in The Woodlands. Back in Boerne, the feelings are a little mixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so happy to hear that our community is looking into the e-bikes, especially on our walking trails,\u201d said one woman walking her dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould that be up to the police or up to the parents, kind of thing? They\u2019re not doing anything wrong, even though their might be some laws against it. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re doing anything wrong,\u201d said another man walking along a Boerne street.<\/p>\n
As for Mendoza, he\u2019s a responsible adult, and he wouldn\u2019t recommend it for kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the kids? No, no. No good because it\u2019s very speedy,\u201d Mendoza said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOERNE, Texas \u2014 Boerne resident Luis Mendoza has an e-bike, his only means of personal transportation. Mendoza says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1061,132,134,133,12710,1570,102,138,223,1225,82,6293,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-276179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-public-safety","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bryan-boes","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}