Login | July 01, 2025
E-bike accidents on the rise
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: June 30, 2025
Are you an e-bike rider?
Well if you are, you might want to listen up because there’s been a number of studies on e-bike safety over the past few years, and the news is not so good for either of us.
According to a recent study published in the July, 23, 2024 issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) there are some very alarming statistics regarding e-bikes.
The study, “Injuries With Electric vs. Conventional Scooters and Bicycles,” had the researchers concluding that, “in a cross-sectional study including 86,623 individuals, electric bicycle injuries increased by nearly 100% and electric scooter injuries increased by more than 45% annually.
Injured electric vehicle users were older and less commonly helmeted than those injured from conventional vehicles, with significantly lower odds of hospitalization in individuals who were Black than in those who were White.”
Now to me, a frequent user of our many multi-use trail systems, I’m not surprised.
And that’s because over the past several years I’ve witnessed an exponential increase in the number of e-bikers.
And as I’ve talked about in several of my Legal News editorials, many of these new trail enthusiasts have essentially launched themselves straight into riding a rather fast electronic bicycle on well populated trails while having accrued virtually zero bicycling experience.
In my world, zero bicycle handling experience coupled with faster than normal speeds can only lead to bad outcomes.
Because quite honestly, novice bikers don’t have the physical capabilities and the handling skills to ride a traditional bicycle down a trail at 15-20 mph, let alone novice e-bikers.
Yet today’s e-bikes give newbies a game-changing opportunity - the ability to reach speeds that they couldn’t possibly attain on traditional bikes.
Unfortunately though, the faster you go the more critical is the need to have good handling skills and great reaction times.
Don’t believe me?
Then try bunny hopping a rock, chuckhole or branch on the trail at 15-20 mph; try veering hard to the right or left off the trail at 15-20 mph and then try to get back on without crashing; attempt to look behind you while riding at 15-20 mph without swerving; and try to negotiate an entrance/exit gate with others behind and/or in front of you without falling at 15-20 mph.
So the researchers of this JAMA paper found that US e-bike injuries have increased by 30 times over the period of 2017-2022.
What’s more, hospitalizations increased by 43 times.
And across this 5-year span there were 45,000+ visits to emergency rooms as a result of e-bike injuries, and of those there were 5,000+ hospitalizations.
What’s more the researchers in this study were gobsmacked to learn that one of the most prevalent injuries was to the head, and that stat directly correlates to the fact that a substantial number of the injured e-bikers weren’t wearing helmets.
Let me get this straight: They haven’t ridden a bicycle in God knows how many years yet they’re riding a motor-powered bike down populated trails with dogs on leashes, skateboarders, roller bladers, runners and walkers looking at their I-phones, and all the while they’re not wearing helmets?
In another recent study, “The Rapid Escalation of Fractures and Hospital Admissions From Electric Bicycle Injuries in the United States: An Analysis of National Injury Data From 2019 to 2023,” published in the May 1, 2025 issue of Journal of Orthopedic Trauma, researchers found that, “A total of 22,432 e-bicycle fractures occurred in the United States from 2019 to 2023, which was a weighted population estimate from 520 raw, unweighted NEISS samples. The number of fractures and admissions increased by 2,371% and 3,146% in 2023, respectively, compared with 2019.”
And in that study researchers revealed that a majority of said fractures occurred above the waist, and that riders in the 35- to 55-year-old age range sustained the largest proportion of these injuries.
So we’re not talking about young kids who are doing stupid kid things on e-bikes, we’re talking about grown adults with no cycling experience getting back on fast, motor-powered, two-wheeled machines and crashing at an ever alarmingly higher rate.
Which is precisely why I don’t ride my bike on recreational trails during the weekends because it’s turned into amateur hour.