More than a dozen arrests in Wellington, and multiple deaths including one this month in Jupiter, are turning the spotlight on an exploding profusion of small electric vehicles, including bicycles, scooters and motorcycles, increasingly falling under the handlebar grip of young teenagers.
Wellington’s Public Safety Committee, meeting on Tuesday, March 11, learned the details of an operation to crack down on illegal street and sidewalk use of “e-moto” vehicles, motorcycles that sometimes get loosely lumped in with “e-bike” in popular discourse.
“We’ve arrested 15 kids,” Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Matthew DeJoy said. “The reason we went so severe is we don’t want another kid injured or dead.”
Concerns are already rising about electric bicycles, where a motor aids pedaling and can achieve speeds of 20 mph, 28 mph or more, depending on various configurations and modifications. That’s considerably faster than human feet typically can go it alone.
A sixth grader died in Jupiter this month riding such an “e-bike,” and days later, a North Naples 14-year-old died after his e-bike was hit by a car in his neighborhood, according to published reports.
Now add to this picture electric motorcycles, which can achieve highway speeds, yet are evidently being treated by some families as an appropriate way for students to get around on streets and sidewalks.
“They were doing 70 mph in these things,” DeJoy said. “No helmets, most of them.”
That’s not legal, he said.
“It is a criminal offense to ride an unregistered motor vehicle on sidewalks and on the roadway,” DeJoy said.
An educational program at local schools was designed to spread the word, but when that didn’t seem to get everyone’s attention, it was followed by a crackdown.
That has not stopped every case of unauthorized use of electric motorcycles, but it has decreased their appearances at local schools, DeJoy said.
The profusion of various kinds of e-vehicles in the marketplace in recent years means state and local regulations and enforcement often have trouble keeping up.
The category can include electronic bikes, scooters, skateboards and motorcycles, sometimes grouped together under the term “micromobility.” Costs are coming down, making them more accessible to more people, said Brian Ruscher, deputy director of multimodal matters for the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency.
The lower-speed forms of e-bikes are generally allowed almost everywhere — roadways, bike lanes, trails, multi-use paths and sidewalks, he said.
Safety officials recommend helmets for all, but they are legally required for riders under 16.
Still, look up “e-bikes” on search engines and prepare for a dizzying array of options generated under that heading.
“It’s very ambiguous, which I think is one of the main dangers around these vehicles,” Ruscher told the Wellington committee.
Some e-bikes have strong safety features, such as brake lights and turn signals, but others do not.
At least 130 incidents of traumatic injury have occurred in Palm Beach County in recent years associated with electric bikes and scooters, Ruscher said, citing health agency data.
U.S. emergency room visits connected to micromobility vehicles more than doubled from 34,000 in 2017 to 87,800 in 2023, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
March is Florida Bicycle Month, so it’s a timely moment to keep this information in mind, Ruscher said.
“Very informative,” Committee Chair Michael Weil said.
The Village of Wellington maintains an e-bike web page that tries to draw distinctions between e-bikes, e-moto, and the laws and safety recommendations at issue.
To learn more about e-bikes, visit www.wellingtonfl.gov/2306/e-bike-safety.
Meanwhile, a report from Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue officials serving Wellington noted that the number of service calls are rising during the winter season with its influx of residents, but response times are down.
For example, that meant 72 more calls for a total of 1,825 in the three months ending March 10, compared to the previous three months.
The majority of those responses were medical calls, about 72 percent, followed by alarms and vehicle accidents combining for more than 20 percent. Fires represented 23 calls, or 1.26 percent.
Response times averaged six minutes, 39 seconds, about 10 seconds lower than the previous three months.
