Signs of the exploding popularity of e-bikes are everywhere.
Riders are showing up in massive groups at the beach, kids are popping wheelies on quiet residential roads and scores of others are showing up in emergency rooms with cuts, broken bones or worse.
An 81-year-old was allegedly killed in Lake Forest after a 14-year-old crashed into him after he was spotted doing wheelies. In Yorba Linda, a 12-year-old was critically injured while riding a modified e-motorcycle. In Oceanside, a rider fled from police in a chase that reached speeds up to 50 mph and, in Huntington Beach a man was attacked after riding his scooter through a crowd of more than 100 young e-bike riders.
Now, with graduations underway and summer around the corner, police across the state are looking for ways to pump the brakes on dangerous e-bike riding.
“If these bikes are not treated with respect and care, it could be just as dangerous as handing over a firearm,” said Officer Brandon Pon, a collision investigator with the Los Angeles Police Department.
It’s not just risky riding that’s raised concerns. Online videos show riders how to easily modify bikes to increase speeds. Police said some bikes that are marketed for kids are more akin to motorcycles, reaching speeds of up to 50 mph. Some parents are unaware of the difference between e-bikes and e-motorcycles, police said, while others are knowingly handing over the fast, dangerous bikes to young and inexperienced riders.
The fast bikes, some of them illegal to use if the rider is not licensed, are easy to find and in April, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta warned sellers, manufacturers and consumers that modified e-bikes, and those that exceed state regulations may be illegal for unlicensed riders.
Weeks later, Amazon de-listed several electric motorcycles from purchase in California, and law enforcement officials are looking for other ways to cut down on illegal riding before summer.
In Orange County, Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer has created a specialized unit to go after dangerous riders, including minors, and begun charging parents, too.
“If parents refuse to hold their children accountable, then I am going to hold parents accountable when they knowingly break the law,” Spitzer said in a statement. “There is absolutely no reason a child should be handed the keys to a motorcycle and be sent on their way without training, without a license, and without the maturity to handle that kind of responsibility.”
In San Diego, the risks and dangers have grown to a point where on May 28, the county’s health department issued a notice warning doctors about the increasing number of e-bike related injuries.
The County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency recommended physicians to encourage helmet use and counseled parents about the differences between e-bikes, the risks of riding in tandem, and local and state laws.
But with few regulations on the books and companies designing some to look like motorcycles, interest in e-bikes has surged. At first, they were spotted in more affluent communities, with the cost of e-bikes ranging anywhere between $1,000 to $6,000 for stock models.
But soon they started to be spotted everywhere.
And the casualties connected to e-bikes are mounting.
In Orange County, an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran died in a collision with a 14-year-old on an e-bike. Last month, a 12-year-old riding an e-bike was seriously injured after colliding with a Tesla in San Diego. In Sacramento County, a 60-year-old nurse died in a collision with a teen on a biking path.
Along with these incidents, a whole other set of issues arise when riders post a call for a “rideout” on social media, which can trigger a gathering of dozens of riders or more.
Law enforcement officials said the large crowds can be known to get rowdy, block large streets as they ride en mass and in a few occasions turned violent.
Sam El-Said, a 51-year-old from Huntington Beach, was attacked by several young men May 9 after he and his wife rode their e-scooters through a crowd of more than 100 people on e-bikes. Two minors have been arrested.
“When they get in these packs they get brazen,” El-Said said. “I can’t tell what provoked them, but I know I’m not the only one that’s experienced these types of things.”
He’s seen the large crowd of e-bike riders gather regularly near the beach, he said, on the weekends and summer months.
“These kids will ride down the street and play chicken with cars,” he said. “They just go out there and wreck havoc.”
Summertime will likely bring more riders out, and police are trying to get as much information and education out to the public as they can before to prevent more injuries on the street, Pon said.
Part of the issue, Pon said, is that parents are unaware to the types of e-bikes that are being purchased and instead providing teenagers with e-motorcycles and dirt bikes.
E-bikes in California are split into three classifications, depending on features and maximum speeds.
Class 1 bicycles have an electric motor that engages only when manual pedals are used, with a maximum motor speed of 20 mph. Class 2 bicycles also provide electrical power up to 20 mph, but have a throttle that can be used without using the pedals. Class 3 e-bikes are similar to Class 1 pedal bicycles, but have a maximum speed of 28 mph, and the rider must be over 16 years of age.
But electric cycles that can boost power past 28 mph, have a motor stronger than 750 watts or do not have pedals are not legally considered e-bikes in California, according to the California Department of Justice. Those vehicles are instead considered either electric mopeds or motorcycles, and are required to be registered with the DMV and the rider to have a motorcycle license.
Bikes must have a label that identifies what class of e-bike they are, and the California Department of Justice earlier this month warned retailersthat misrepresenting electric motorcycles as e-bikes is a crime.
“We have to get this out there because I do believe that most of these collisions, for the large part, they’re likely preventable,” Pon said.
On May 10, after the warning went out, Amazon agreed to stop selling e-bikes that went over the state’s limit.
“We are in the process of removing e-bike listings that do not comply with California speed limit regulations,” the company confirmed to The Times in an email.
The young age of riders, and the speeds that can be reached by e-bikes and e-motorcycles can become a deadly combination, said Dr. Alan Nager, from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
“They go faster than regular bikes, they’re heavier, they’re more difficult to maneuver and they require additional coordination and awareness,” Nager said.
As director of emergency and transport medicine at the hospital, Nager said he’s seen the impact and risks of the electric bicycles first hand, and they’re showing up in the emergency room more often.
For the past three years, Nager said, the number of kids and teenagers admitted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with e-bike related injuries has doubled each year.
In 2023, the hospital recorded eight patients with e-bike related injuries, Nager said. In 2024, the hospital saw 16 patients and, in 2025, 36 injured riders were admitted. So far this year, Nager said, the hospital has seen 21 patients with e-bike injuries through the first five months of the year.
The hospital also sees several patients that are injured from traditional pedal bike accidents, Nager said, but e-bike riders tend to suffer more severe and serious injuries, a fact he attributes to the speed of the bikes.
“There’s a relationship between higher speed, less coordination and more chances of an accident,” Nager said.
Quantifying exactly how many crashes, injuries and fatalities occur is a challenge, however. Multiple law enforcement agencies still classify e-bike crashes with pedal bike accidents, and the recent appearance of e-bikes has made data difficult to collect.
“Specifically, incident and crash reporting is seldom specific enough to indicate these bike types, with e-bike crashes often recorded as bicycle crashes, and e-scooters often recorded as pedestrian crashes,” a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement.
One study by San Jose University’s Mineta Transportation Institute published in December found that data was hard to collect for the same reason. It found, however, that according to the National Fatality Analysis Reporting System, at least 154 fatal e-bike crashes had been recorded between 2022 and 2023.
Another study published this year by the American Academy Orthopaedic Surgeons, looking at electric and pedal bike injuries at a San Diego trauma center, found e-bike injuries in San Diego had jumped by more than 300% between 2019 and 2023.
In Orange County, the sheriff’s department is working with schools and Orange County Transportation Authority for educational programs, said Sgt. Gerard McCann of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
For example, several schools require students to register their bicycles — electric or pedal powered — if they’re taken to and from school.
But as many parents know, if there’s a new rule, there will likely be a child out there trying to break it. Earlier this month, McCann said, deputies were called to a local high school after students riding e-bikes, including some that appeared to be motorcycles, were spotted locking them in a secluded area away from campus to avoid registering them.
A recent review of e-bike-related citations by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department also showed the growing problem. E-bike-related citations by the department jumped to 259 in 2025, according to the department — up from 173 the previous year. The two most common tickets, according to the data, was riding without a helmet and unsafe riding.
Online, teens are also watching videos on how to remove the speed limits on their bikes, so they can go past the legal limit.
Some of the modifications are so particular, Pon said, they go unnoticed without specific training or expertise.
“It’s almost impossible for law enforcement to identify right off the bat, a simple modification,” Pon said.
The modifications can be simple and easily made on several models with just a few basic tools, but can increase speeds of the bike up to 50 mph. Video tutorials show how to override control panels that limit speeds, and how to change out batteries and motors.
It also isn’t uncommon for law enforcement to try to stop a rider on a e-bike, or an illegal motorcycle, and having the minor and their friends take off.
In Newport Beach, police tried to stop an underage rider on May 9 when they spotted him riding an illegal electric motorcycle but, according to videoposted by police, the boy fled from police. At times, the boy drove onto opposing traffic at high speed, prompting police to abandon the chase.
He was later arrested at his home, and police said they had previous encounters with him. In a statement, police said they would be recommending charges against his mother.
When deputies do make a stop and try to reach out to parents about the risks with the illegal e-bike or motorcycle, McCann said parents are often not aware of the differences between them. A few parents, he said, are angry that the vehicles are seized after learning their kids are not allowed to ride them.
“That’s part of the problem,” McCann said. “It’s really the parents who are paying for them.”
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