In January, outgoing New Jersey governor Pat Murphy signed a first-in-the-nation bill that sought to make roads safer for everyone.
S-4834, passed by a wide bipartisan margin and sponsored by state Senate president Nick Scutari, was motivated by the “dramatic increase” in ebike use, which “created greater dangers for their operators, other motorists, and pedestrians,” Scutari wrote in a statement. Several teenagers in his district and elsewhere in the state had died on two-wheeled motorized vehicles, including a 13-year-old boy who died last fall after colliding with a landscaping truck.
The new law requires anyone who owns and rides a bike with pedal-assist tech or a throttle to be at least 15 years old and to have a license, either a driver’s license or a motorized bicycle license. (Riders can receive a stand-alone motorized bicycle only after passing a road test.) Riders must register their ebikes with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), and anyone on a bike that can travel faster than 20 mph must have insurance.
Now advocates in the state and elsewhere in the country say that one of the country’s first big experiments with ebike licensing is a slow-moving mess. Riders reported widespread confusion at local MVC branches, where workers have appeared uninformed about the new rules and have even reportedly run out of registration stickers. People with years-old ebikes who can’t provide proof of purchase have been told to pay sales tax again. Agency buildings lack bike parking and are hard to reach by public transit. Enforcement of the law is spotty and inconsistent. Ebike-loving vacationers have reported avoiding the state altogether. And ebike sales, which boomed during the pandemic, have fallen off a cliff.
“They have vilified ebikes,” says Scott Chambers, owner of Zippy’s Bikes in Wildwood, New Jersey. His store has seen a 90 percent annual decline in ebike sales and a 50 percent overall decline. With most of last year’s inventory unsold, the shop’s future is “bleak,” he says. “It’s hard to play catch-up.” The New Jersey E-Bike Coalition, which formed in response to this law, says 37 bike shops have closed statewide.
New Jersey is just one of many places grappling with questions about ebikes. Across the country, reports of reckless riding, speeding, and dangerous collisions, especially among teenagers, have lawmakers looking for new ways to crack down on motor-assisted bikes. Lawmakers in California, Illinois, and New York have proposed their own ebike licensing schemes, though none have passed. New York’s City Council backed down from a licensing proposal this summer.
At the same time, workers, leisure riders, and everyday errand-runners have come to depend on ebikes, which are cheaper to buy, fuel, and store than cars. “I’m a little bit in limbo,” says Karin Vanoppen, a Jersey City resident who hasn’t ridden her pedal-assisted bike, which she uses to scale steep hills and pick up groceries, since the state began enforcing the rule in July. Vanoppen doesn’t have a driver’s license—she has never needed one—and says the state’s testing locations are all more than an hour's ride away, some on roads where ebikes aren’t legally allowed to ride. At a legislative hearing, one lawmaker suggested that those who can’t drive ask their parents to transport them to their ebike road tests. “I guess my 85-year-old mother has to come,” Vanoppen says.
New Jersey has issued 16,825 ebike registrations, New Jersey MVC spokesperson William Connolly told WIRED, a small fraction of the estimated 300,000 ebikes and e-motos that advocates say are in the state. MVC has granted 221 ebike licenses. In a written statement, Connolly acknowledged that the state agency underwent “an adjustment period as our staff is trained, and both staff and customers get used to new procedures.” Overall, though, “the launch has gone smoothly,” he said. (Several state ebike riders with driver’s licenses told WIRED they had no trouble registering their bikes.)
Persistent public confusion over what an ebike is complicates matters. The lowest-speed models use motors that propel only when riders pedal and top out at 20 mph; the fastest have throttles or more powerful motors that can reach 25 to 28 mph. E-motos, a different and newly popular vehicle category, can forgo pedals and hit much higher speeds, sometimes past 50 mph. They also exist in a legal gray area, either unregulated or subject to licensing, registration, and age requirements that are rarely enforced.
Even police officers can struggle to tell the two apart. Records collected through the state’s public request law by Shannon Connor, who owns the ebike shop Jesse’s E-Rides in southern New Jersey, show that at least five of the eight vehicles involved in serious crashes in the past year were e-motos, not ebikes—including the collision that killed a 13-year-old last fall. New Jersey has treated motorized vehicles like e-motos and mopeds as motorcycles for decades: Riders must be at least 17 and have a license. (In Southern California, which has similar laws, at least 12 parents have been charged after prosecutors accused them of knowingly allowing their children to operate electric, two-wheeled vehicles illegally, most of them e-motos.)
“The biggest problem that we have is educating people,” Connor says. Her teenage son, Jesse, is autistic and alternates between his four red e-tricycles to travel independently. (State officials finally concluded this summer that the law doesn’t affect electric tricycles.) Her shop, named after him, has seen its sales cut in half this year and is relocating to a smaller storefront with lower rent. She says many people still don’t understand the new law and believe that ebikes have been banned altogether.
The ebike law is particularly burdensome for disabled people who can’t or don’t already drive cars, Connor says. Advocates also worry about lower-income people and delivery drivers, who may not have the time or resources to travel to get licensed. State ebike registration costs $8 annually, and licenses and exams cost $11 altogether, with all fees waived for the first year.
A new proposed bill by state senator Raj Mukherji in October would exempt lower-speed ebikes that are capable of motor-only speeds of 20 mph from insurance and licensing requirements. In a statement, Mukherji described the proposal as “a sensible balance between public safety and preserving access to affordable, environmentally friendly transportation.” So-called “class 3” ebikes, which travel faster, would continue to require licenses and registration.
Cycling advocates say there are ways to make streets safer without tighter ebike legislation. The federal government could use existing rules and regulations to crack down on e-motos, which manufacturers often sell online at lower prices and market in ways that can lead shoppers to think they’re appropriate for kids or other untrained riders.
The country could also start teaching young people to ride bikes the same way they do cars. “We want youth to be educated about how to operate vehicles safely and to know the rules of the road, and they aren’t taught that in schools in any comprehensive way,” says Ken McLeod, the policy director of the 200,000-member League of American Bicyclists. “Right now, people jump to licensing as a way to do that.”
