What Will It Take to Make Them Safe?
Electric bicycles, or e-bikes, have become an increasing part of the everyday commute. This is especially true in the City of Santa Barbara, where city officials have redesigned city pathways to encourage bike, and now e-bike, traffic. However, frustrations and dangers have accompanied this transition from car traffic to bike traffic, mostly due to the increasing popularity of fast-moving e-bikes, especially among young people. Public safety is at risk.
It is with a sense of urgency that the 2024-25 Santa Barbara County Grand Jury studied the matter of e-bikes in the City of Santa Barbara. Numerous postings on social media by local citizens increasingly cite bad behavior and near accidents involving e-bikes. Police and hospital reports of increasing numbers of accidents and injuries involving e-bikes only served to underscore these complaints.
After years of delay, the Santa Barbara City Council enacted an e-bike ordinance in February 2025, which made certain unsafe riding behaviors subject to administrative fines. The Santa Barbara Police Department will now have the legal tools it needs to cite unsafe riders, but no extra staff or funds to help carry out the added duties. The Grand Jury recommends a more consistent and strategic approach to unsafe actions by e-bike riders to bring about needed changes in behavior.
Moreover, education is an important part of achieving desired changes in behavior around e-bike usage. The Grand Jury recommends an expanded community-wide public information campaign, as several other counties in California have successfully done with regard to new e-bike laws, to get all of those who use our public roads to recognize the value of safe riding.
Read full report here.
BACKGROUND: The Santa Barbara County Grand Jury is a basic part of government within the judicial branch. All Grand Jury reports and agency formal responses to them are posted on the Jury’s website (www.sbcgj.org). The form and timing for required responses are specified by California Penal Code § 933 and 933.05.
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Good work by the grand jury for recognizing that e-bikes aren’t going away. In fact, far more e-bikes are being sold today than electric cars.
This is especially true for young people, who aren’t buying cars like they used to. They don’t want the climate-harming gas vehicles their parents drove, and they can’t afford Rivians.
So they’re choosing e-bikes. E-bikes give kids what cars used to: freedom, mobility, and a way to get to school, work, and practice — without relying on anyone else.
E-bikes aren’t replacing bikes. They’re replacing cars. That’s the shift. Ignoring it is lazy.
We were sold the idea that electric cars would solve the climate crisis. But right now, e-bikes are actually doing the work — and they don’t need a charger or a tax credit to do it.
Not every family in Santa Barbara can afford to buy their kid a car. But many can stretch to afford an e-bike — because it’s the only way their kid can reliably get where they need to go.
Meanwhile, our streets aren’t built for what’s already happening. Bike lanes disappear without warning. E-bikes are everywhere, but there’s nowhere safe for them to go. The result? Confusion, frustration, and people getting hurt.
E-bikes are fast — sure. But speed isn’t the problem. The problem is design. Right now, kids are stuck choosing between weaving through crowds or riding next to multi-ton SUVs. That’s not safe for anyone.
We require seatbelts in cars, but not helmets for kids going 30 miles an hour down State Street. It’s backwards. And it’s completely fixable.
Stop blaming the bikes. Fix the roads. Protect the riders. Protect the walkers. Do both.
The fix? For starters, the city should stop treating e-bikes like a nuisance and start managing them as a major way people get around.
The mayor should stop writing op-eds trashing State Street and pleading for more cars — and start working on real solutions for the city he represents.
And the Santa Barbara Police Department should stop looking the other way. Enforce speed limits. Enforce helmet laws. If there’s money for armored vehicles and millions for a new headquarters, there’s money to put bike cops on State Street and near schools.
We can’t expect to build a safer future by ignoring the present.
Good points EXCEPT – we do require helmets for anyone under 18.
You’re right. But it’s not enforced.
I wonder what the average age of the reckless e-bikers is that got this issue to the Grand Jury level. I’m guessing about 13-16 yo. Parents, if you put ‘em on a e-bike, start working harder to educate your kids. They’re not doing well currently. Or you can continue to say screw it, and see what happens. Reckless!
2019 “Grand jury thinks about bike safety”
2020 “Grand jury thought about bike safety”
2021 “Grand jury is thinking about making bike safety safer”
2022 “Grand jury is thinking about making bike safety an issue”
2023 “Grand jury find that bikes aren’t safe”
2024 “grand jury is now thinking about making bike safety rules”
2025 “Grand jury and city administration makes administrative decisions to talk about sunflower seeds being a problem”
Love it! Says it all…
There it is
This is just a broken record playing over & over every year with this crap
2026 “Grand jury decides that bikes are safe but the safety of bikers is to keep the safety of safe bikers a safe way to keep safe and stay safe from safe cars and other safe riders safe”
They are going to run out of headlines
Maybe it won’t take a kid being killed, a driver being traumatized for life and parents grieving for the rest of theirs–or dealing with a former baseball star kid now in a wheelchair ?
If a minor does something illegal on their e-bike and caught by LE, the e-bike should be confiscated. To get the e-bike back, the parent(s)/guardian(s) would be required attend a bike safety class with their child, and have to pass a verbal or written test before the e-bike is released. 2nd offense = keep the bike for a month. 3rd offense = 6 months. 4th = to the public auction house.
E-bikes are motorized vehicles. Get them off the bike path(s).
No. I ride my E-bike on the bike path. (But it’s pedal assist, max 20 mph, and I rarely go above 15-16 mph).