California cops are teaching kids to ride electric bikes

Electric bikes have exploded in popularity – and so have the risks. In Huntington Beach, California, rising e-bike crashes involving young riders prompted the city’s police department to launch what may be California’s first police-led e-bike safety course for kids, and it might be exactly the kind of inventive community-based program more places need.

E-bikes are transforming urban transportation: they’re fast, affordable, and efficient. In fact, a growing trend is seeing teenagers delay or eschew driver’s licenses altogether, often in favor of using an e-bike.

But e-bikes also introduce new safety challenges, especially for inexperienced riders. Huntington Beach reported 147 e-bike accidents in 2024, more than double its total just two years prior. As Mayor Pat Burns told the LA Times, “I saw several kids blow right through a red light, clueless to how close they came to getting slaughtered by the oncoming cars.”

Emergency room teams are sounding the alarm, too. Amy Frias of Children’s Hospital of Orange County said many of the injuries are as serious as car crash trauma, including fractures, concussions, and shattered kneecaps, especially among unhelmeted kids. The stakes are high, and traditional school safety programs aren’t always prepared to address the unique physics of electric bikes.

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Enter Huntington Beach PD’s new e-bike safety course. With the first session held this week at Spring View Middle School and taught by Sgt. Mike Thomas and other certified instructors, the free training pairs real-world skills like emergency braking, obstacle avoidance, and helmet awareness. The course includes hands-on drills in a cone-studded course and focuses on repeating exercises at increasingly faster speeds to help riders understand how those speeds can impact their reaction time and ability to operate the bikes effectively.

Teens navigated the course on their own electric bicycles. Images and videos from the event show an overwhelming number of Super73 e-bikes, a brand often scapegoated in the broader phenomenon of hazardous riding among teens, despite the company promoting the PedalAce e-bike rider education program and frequently partnering with young rider training events like these at local high schools. The company reportedly provided a free Super73 e-bike to be given away at the event this week.

Police Chief Eric Parra emphasized the importance of experiential learning. “You can tell kids how to act and how to behave and how to ride,” Parra explained. “But when you show them physically how 20 miles an hour is so much different than 10, then they start to realize. Then it becomes effective. Experiential learning is the only way to go.”

Parents were required to attend too, ensuring a shared conversation about risks, rules, and real-world riding situations. So far, early feedback suggests a positive impact. Huntington Beach Union High School District officials are reportedly considering making the program mandatory for students who ride e-bikes to school.

More free training sessions are planned, including three additional sessions taking place today.

Electrek’s Take

This is the kind of news I like to cover! We need more of this around the country. E-bike safety shouldn’t be an afterthought, and relying solely on regulation isn’t enough. With youth injuries rising, proactive, practical safety education is essential.

Huntington Beach PD’s rollout seems like an innovative and scalable solution, if the funding is there to repeat it on a larger scale. It’s also a signal that law enforcement, educators, and health professionals can – and should – collaborate on addressing the unfortunately darker side of e-bike popularity, that accidents can and likely will continue to rise. As cities invest in biking infrastructure and micromobility, matching that with hands-on training and helmet culture can be equally life-saving.

I say let’s champion, fund, and scale these programs from California to the rest of the country.