An electric bike, or e-bike, has been at the top of Donal Morrison’s wish list for a few years. For his 11th birthday, his parents bought him one.
“I like the freedom,” he said.
His mom, Nadine Morrison, said she and her husband debated buying one for a long time. Now that their son has one, they have rules – he can ride it in their cul-de-sac while a parent is outside, he must wear a helmet and pads and he needs to take a safety class.
“It’s a hard decision,” she said. “You think about teaching them the right things to do and making the right decisions around it.”
The Morrisons were at Cooke Elementary School on Saturday for an e-bike safety session led by the Virginia Beach Police Department.
The goal, said Capt. Jack Gordon, was not to complain about e-bikes, but to share information about the types of e-bikes and the rules and regulations related to them.
“We want to educate the folks to make sure that you can enjoy those technology pieces, but do it in a safe manner,” he said during the meeting. “What we're just trying to do is just trying to work in collaboration with you guys on safety and the rules of the road to kind of keep you guys safe.”
As e-bike popularity grows among children and teens, so does the number of crash-related injuries. A study analyzing data at a hospital in San Diego found that the number of e-bike accidents involving children rose by more than 300% from 2019 to 2023, resulting in a rise in serious orthopedic injuries.
And many parents may not know as much as they’d like about e-bikes, a gap the VBPD hopes to fill. More than half of parents surveyed for the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health said they were not informed about the different types of e-bikes.
There are three classifications under Virginia law. To be an e-bike, it can have a motor of up to 750 watts and must have a specific classification sticker.
A Class 1 is a pedal-assist bike with a max speed of 20 mph. A Class 2 is a throttle-assist bike with a max speed of 20 mph. With a throttle assist, a bike can accelerate instantly without pedaling. Anyone under 14 is required to wear a helmet when riding either a Class 1 or 2.
A Class 3 bike can go up to 28 mph, has to have a speedometer and can only be ridden by someone 14 or older. Anyone riding a Class 3 bike has to wear a helmet.
MPO Tony Espinosa, who led the class at Cooke Elementary, told families that not everything advertised on the internet as an e-bike actually is. He advised them to check the details before buying one.
E-bikes are considered vehicles, he said, and riders have to follow the same rules that regular drivers do. That means if an 11-year-old on an e-bike ignores a stop sign and gets a moving traffic violation from an officer, it’ll appear on their license later on.
Riders should also pay attention to where e-bikes are prohibited, such as on the Oceanfront’s bike path, boardwalk and sidewalks.
Espinosa also encouraged everyone, regardless of age, to wear a helmet when riding a bike or e-bike.
“I have worked way too many crashes down there where people on e-bikes and regular bikes have fallen off,” he said. “When it comes to concrete versus your melon, the concrete always wins.”
Other safety tips Espinosa shared included using and knowing hand signals; giving more space to stop since e-bikes are faster and heavier; stopping to check their phone and doing a pre-ride check.
He also urged e-bike owners to monitor the lithium-ion battery while it’s charging because it can overheat and catch fire.
For more information about e-bike safety and rules, visit VirginiaBeach.gov.
