CARLSBAD, Calif. (KGTV) – You can see plenty of people riding their bikes in Carlsbad.
“Just observing probably hundreds of kids of all ages out on the bikes,” Paul Jones, who lives in Carlsbad, said on Wednesday.
But the bikes that are becoming a hot topic of conversation and lawmaking aren’t BMX bikes, beach cruisers, or 10-speeds.
It’s e-bikes and those who ride them.
“The dilemma is they pop wheelies; they do all kinds of crazy stuff when they're on their e-bikes,” Brian Baker said.
Carlsbad could be peddling in a new direction when it comes to who can ride e-bikes.
“I think 12 is actually too young or not old enough. I think 15 seems to be a pretty good age,” Jones said.
ABC 10News spoke with some parents near Carlsbad State Beach about the Commission’s recommendation.
“We all have 12-year-olds, and it still seems pretty young. We do let our kids ride their bikes. But it seems like we would have never even let them ride their bikes at all before 12, right?” Gemma Brown said.
Brown said she does trust her 12-year-old because she knows him. But other 12-year-olds are a different story.
One mother told ABC 10News she had their kids take safety courses even before getting on an e-bike.
“Just to go over like street safety, street rules. I mean, it’s very similar to driving a car, and so I think it's important for kids to be aware of the rules of the road,” Shannon Orozco, another parent, said.
The Commission also recommended other actions. It recommended that the City lobby for state legislation to give cities more ability to adopt stricter rules. Some included licensing, registering, and insurance requirements for e-bikes and expanding the age restrictions to above the age of 12.
Some parents ABC 10News spoke 12 may even be too young for the minimum age.
"I mean, you can drive at 16. But maybe like 13, 14. 12 still seems pretty young to me,” Brown said.
“Like we were saying, I don't think I would have let, you know, someone ride an e-bike before that anyway,” Andrea Chappell, another parent, said. “But I think 12, they're still kind of figuring it out and not quite ready to be taking a motorized vehicle around town, but I think 15 would be more appropriate, maybe even older.”
It also asked City staff about the possibility of preventing riders under 16 from riding with passengers on e-bikes.
The City of Carlsbad said recently state law allows sets to set these rules for e-bikes. Due to the age of 12 as the stated age in the legislation, the city isn’t able to make an ordinance with a different age.
Next steps for the age restriction are that the City Council will review the input from the public and will discuss whether to adopt the Commission’s recommendation.
