Regarding Bob Mittlestaedt’s opinion piece on Feb. 18: What a great piece! I wish that in the first paragraph he would have clearly stated that the problem is illegal e-motorcycles and not e-bikes, and that we already have the tools to deal with this. We need to enforce the existing law, especially on manufacturers. The existing law is however too complicated. It perhaps can be difficult for law enforcement and schools to know if a vehicle is an e-bike. The law can and should be made simpler. The Mineta and other studies show the harm comes from speed, not whether there is a throttle or not, and too many throttle e-bikes can’t really be peddled. There is also confusion about what makes and models are legal. And so:
• All e-bikes must have functioning pedals, may have throttles, are restricted to 750 watts peak power, cannot have switches to subvert their power or speed limits and must have anti-hacking protection to stop the same.
• Class 1 e-bikes are limited to 20 mph and may be used anywhere non-e-bikes can be used, including trails, schools, on buses, trains, etc.
• Class 2 e-bikes are limited to 30 mph and may be restricted on trails, schools, buses, trains, etc.
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• Manufacturers must register the make, model and class of their e-bikes. The state will keep an up-to-date list that can easily be used by law enforcement and schools.
• Significant penalties must exist where manufacturers do not follow the law.
While non-partisan and real California Lawmakers are looking to fix the real safety issues, San Mateo Democrats have first created a problem and now they pretend to solve it.
If Becker, Papan, Speier, Mueller were so concerned about the safety of our children, how come that their county has the least amount of bike lanes in the Bay Area? And almost no city has a Safe-Routes-To-School program.
Even worse, San Mateo County is probably the only county where Democrats tried to demolish bike lanes for children in a low-income, equity focus area.
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(1) comment
As so often in today's media, the headline is completely misleading.
There never was a problem with e-bikes - as the author (mostly says) the problem is with e-Motos.
And laws exist for over 23 years, but Bay Area Democrats never care enough to enforce laws.
https://calmatters.org/investigation/2026/02/assembly-driving-bills/
While non-partisan and real California Lawmakers are looking to fix the real safety issues, San Mateo Democrats have first created a problem and now they pretend to solve it.
If Becker, Papan, Speier, Mueller were so concerned about the safety of our children, how come that their county has the least amount of bike lanes in the Bay Area? And almost no city has a Safe-Routes-To-School program.
Even worse, San Mateo County is probably the only county where Democrats tried to demolish bike lanes for children in a low-income, equity focus area.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.