The e-bike backlash is here. Is it an overreaction?

If you live in any California city, surely you’ve seen them: groups of boys at that painfully awkward and insecure stage of early adolescence riding around on e-bikes trying (and almost always failing) to look cool.

Especially memorable are the ones who cover their faces like stormtroopers, or ICE agents, hoping to seem more intimidating than their not-yet-filled-out-frames would otherwise allow.

The whole thing would be just another cringeworthy display of teenage rebellion if the potential consequences weren’t so serious — many of those bikes are equipped with powerful electric motors and can go up to 60 mph.

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The results are predictable: E-bike riders were involved in at least 4,035 collisions in California from 2018 through 2024, according to researchers at UC San Diego, and those were just the accidents serious enough to get reported to police. Accidents on e-bikes also led to injuries more serious than those suffered on traditional bikes, the researchers noted.

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Charging parents

Many of the riders are between 10 and 14 years old and therefore too young to face serious criminal charges for the havoc they wreak.

So Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer has started charging parents with child endangerment for allowing their kids to roam the streets on potentially lethal machines.

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On Wednesday, his office announced charges against six people, including the father of an 11-year-old who suffered a broken collarbone and an arterial bleed after colliding with a pickup truck while speeding on his electric motorcycle in Yorba Linda, and the parents of a 13-year-old who was killed when he lost control of his bike and crashed into a light pole in Garden Grove.

Since January, Spitzer has filed charges against 12 parents in similar circumstances, including the mother of a 14-year-old who struck and killed an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran in Lake Forest.

E-bike buybacks

The effort to corral e-bike riders hasn’t stopped at prosecuting their parents. Last month, Orange County officials sponsored a buyback program modeled on similar schemes designed to get guns off the streets — a measure of how seriously they view the threat.

They offered gift cards ranging in value from $200 to $1,000 depending on the type of bike and scheduled the event to begin at 10 a.m. on a Sunday.

To everyone’s surprise, people started lining up at midnight.

They showed up with all manner of machines, including e-bikes (the kind with pedals), electric scooters and electric motorcycles. Officials had budgeted $100,000 for the program and wound up blowing through that in just a few hours.

It was such a success, they’re planning future buybacks with more lines to speed up the returns and plan to make sure the people surrendering their bikes are Orange County residents.

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Being a kid

It’s obvious why kids on those bikes make people anxious, and it makes sense for police and prosecutors to do whatever they can to keep them from hurting themselves and others.

But sometimes I wonder if we’re all overreacting a little.

For more than a decade, I made the 20-mile commute to work at the Los Angeles Times on a motorcycle. Given what sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic does to my blood pressure, the motorcycle seemed like the safer option. And, yes, I remember the startled, sometimes angry, expressions on drivers’ faces as I cruised by at twice their speed.

“I’m way more scared of you than you are of me,” I’d shout, inaudibly, inside my helmet. Any one of those drivers could have killed me with a simple flick of their steering wheel. In my mind, I wasn’t being anti-social. Quite the opposite: I’d never put more faith in the kindness and care of my fellow humans.

Maybe that’s why, when I look at those kids on their e-bikes, I don’t see Public Enemy No. 1. I know they’re trying to look tough — maybe even trying to scare me — but all I can see is how vulnerable they are. I hope we don’t start treating them all like criminals.

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Today’s recipe

(Jennifer Chong/For The Times)

Fresh, crunchy bread crumbs add contrast to this light chickpea and escarole soup that eats like a hearty meal. Use another type of canned bean if that’s all you have and also feel free to switch the escarole for your favorite green, like Swiss chard or kale.

Question for you

You’ve told us your favorite Halloween candy. Now we want to know: How much have you spent on Halloween candy this year?

Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

Photo of the day

The decaying skull of Mara looks out from the “Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye” ride at Disneyland. The ride underwent six weeks of refurbishment and is scheduled to open Friday, Oct. 23.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Games

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Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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