From 9-year-olds to full-grown adults, e-bikes are made for everyone, inclusively. You don’t need a license, you just need your pointer finger to press the throttle to accelerate to 30 miles per hour in an instant. Ebikes have taken over neighborhoods in gangs, Newport shopping centers, local streets, sidewalks, and CDM’s parking lot. An e-bike is the best vehicle for travelling as a teen with no car, but many, most specifically, parents are worried if this form of transportation is safe to the community. Are ebikes a danger to CDM and all of Newport? Should there be some form of safety law towards them? Questions have been burning up at CDM on what’s safer for our community, but also what’s convenient for the students.
Asking a student versus a teacher on their opinion of ebikes would show two very different standpoints on this issue. Students care more about convenience of not having to pedal for an hour with a 50 pound backpack weighing them down, meanwhile teachers worry about kids going 30 mph in a school parking lot and what tragedies and occurrences could follow that.
Many teachers and students come to consensus that we need to enforce strict rules, but not ban them entirely.
Kingston Wise, a freshman at CDM who doesn’t own an e-bike but is very familiar with them around his neighborhood and at school, states that e-biking is either safe or not “depending on the person.” He talks about how mostly he “hasn’t seen dangerous e-biking” at CDM for the most part, but he talks about how some individuals can be reckless on big roads and in neighborhoods. He stated, “there has been 3 times when my dad’s car has been hit by e-bikers.” He definitely agrees for the majority part of it, e-bikes aren’t prone to be safe, but he also states there isn’t another transportation form just as efficient as cars, which most people can’t have yet.
One teacher at CDM, Ms. Juarez, has a similar viewpoint but definitely sees it going on at CDM too. She believes that e-bike are “great in the sense that they can transport you faster without taking up as much space and all the pollution of a car,” but, there definitely has to be “more of an emphasis on safety.” Ms. Juarez talks about multiple instances when she’s just been out in the parking lot driving meanwhile there are bikers “flying” right next to her car. She also states that not only is it a safety hazard at CDM, but also in the community. She talks about her experience to go out on runs in the neighborhood and there are e-bikers practically driving them right next to her and many going against traffic. Ms. Juarez believes that e-bikes should be treated the same way as motorcycles, she stated her brother that owns had to go through some form of class and get a license for it, meaning not everything can just go out and buy one as they please.
Although many pedestrians feel that e-bikes seem dangerous and reckless, several e-bikers don’t see themselves reckless at all.
Akemi Washington, an avid e-biker who goes biking with her friends and uses it to come to school and go home, says that e-biking, for the most part, is safe and convenient. She doesn’t believe e-bikes are a safety hazard at CdM, and, like Kingston, stated “it depends on how the person is about their e-bike.” She also mentions she uses her bike “solely for transportation purposes,” and says she “never goes above the speed limit.” When asked about how she feels about illegal bikes, like Surrons that go much above the speed limit and are illegal to people under the age of 16, she states, “they’re dangerous, but in the end it’s the person’s choice to buy one.”
Bora Acar, another e-biker, also believes that e-bikes are safe “if you’re smart about it.” When asked about how he feels about illegal bikes, he stated that it’s the same if you have a normal bike, however, it the person riding it matters.
The thing about e-bikes is that no one can control who buys e-bikes. Should e-bikers at CdM be required to get a license, and is this a matter that we should let our entire community know about?
