Electric scooters and bicycles are fun, useful, and a necessity for many. These personal transport devices allow people to forgo an expensive car and dealing with traffic in large cities. But there’s a trend of illegal usage of electric bikes and scooters, such as using them on sidewalks (most major cities ban bike use on sidewalks, and for good reason), pedestrian paths and parks normally meant for foot traffic or legal bikes, as illegal users wear down these paths or pose a serious threat to pedestrians. Other than the obvious dangers, what makes certain electric bikes illegal is their lack of pedals (street/road legal electrical bicycles must have pedals, otherwise they’re just an electric motorcycle), capable of speeds over 40mph, and don’t meet other criteria to be classified as legal to operate on public roads.
I doubt this affects the vast majority of riders that depend on personal transportation devices; instead serving to get dangerous transportation devices (and their potentially dangerous users) off the streets. Most of these illegal devices are actually classified as not street legal by their manufacturers (One of Segway’s electric bikes are classified as off road vehicles that cannot legally be operated on streets), so it’s about time there’s actual enforcement. Just looking at all the electric bicycle and scooter crashes in YouTube makes my heart wrench. At the end of the day, I really do think CA should require special registration of certain transportation devices, especially if it is expected to share the same roads and trails cars or pedestrians occupy.
Article image and source from: KTLA