CARS aren’t the only rides getting electric makeovers, with one two-wheel mode of transportation now being targeted by American lawmakers.
Come October, one state is seeking to severely limit and restrict the usage of these vehicles, especially as they become popular with local kids who modify them to go well beyond their marketed speeds.
An e-bike crackdown is sweeping the nation[/caption]
The easily modifiable vehicles can reach dangerously fast speeds for inexperienced riders and drivers[/caption]
E-bike rental programs have the potential to be affected by the new law depending on their exact wattage rating[/caption]
The new Connecticut laws go into effect October 1, and will reclassify e-bikes as different types of vehicles depending on their wattage.
Those which have batteries over 750 watts, but fewer than 3,500 watts, will be classified as motor-driven cycles, requiring a license to drive them.
Those which have batteries over 3,500 watts will be considered a motor-driven vehicle, which will make them comparable to motorcycles and necessitate proper insurance and registration.
“Anything above 3,700 watts is then considered a motorcycle, and you do need a motorcycle endorsement for that, and you need proper insurance, and all that goes along with that,” Senator Christine Cohen told local outlet CT Insider.
“It was really important that we sort of set those parameters up,” she added. Her reference to 3,700 watts appears to be a mistake, with multiple sources claiming a threshold of 3,500 watts in the laws.
E-bikes with batteries in between 750 and 3,500 watts are able to skirt the insurance and registration requirements due to being comparable to mopeds, which only require a driver’s or motorcycle license to operate.
A major factor in the push for these new laws surrounding e-bikes is how popular they’ve proven with Connecticut children, particularly those who are middle and high school-aged.
“The whole entire bike rack is filled with these bikes that look like electric dirt bikes,” said Westport Police Lieutenant Serenity Dobson of local middle and high schools.
She added that there are readily available YouTube videos which show these children how to easily remove electronic limiters on the bikes, raising their top speeds from 30 to 60 or even 70 mph.
“We’ve had a lot of complaints of kids driving recklessly on them. They’re not even following the rules of the road,” she said of recent reports of “multiple accidents” involving e-bikes.
One such accident in the state led to the death of a 15-year-old boy who was struck by a motor vehicle while riding his e-bike, per the CTPost.
The coming October laws will mark the first time e-bikes have ever been acknowledged in Connecticut state legislature.
“They have changed so dramatically as the sector has really taken off. The challenge for us was figuring it out,” Cohen said of their previous absence and looming inclusion.
One major roadblock has been comparing the power of e-bikes to traditional motorcycles. Whereas the CCs, or cubic centimeters, of a motorcycle engine’s volume can represent its power, wattage doesn’t do the same for e-bikes.
That number instead represents battery power output, or the effective size of the battery. Factors like the strength of the e-bike’s motor and complexity of its controller have the most impact on speed.
The United States Department of Energy claims that 1.1 million e-bikes were sold nationwide in 2022, four times as many e-bikes sold in 2019.
E-BIKE EMERGENCY
The widespread, ever increasing popularity of e-bikes is best represented by how many states have followed Connecticut’s suit and begun enacting laws which address their usage.
Montana is also set to enact new legislation on October 1 focused on e-bikes, limiting how fast they can go, where they can ride, and even the safety equipment they must have to be considered legal.
New York City has also been attempting to crack down on unfettered e-bike usage, but has unintentionally caught some traditional cyclists in their crosshairs as a result.
This situation and others have led e-bikers to argue they’re being unfairly targeted, proven when one NYPD post warning riders of how to avoid tickets showed illegally parked cars in the background.
