JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As e-bike crashes and injuries continue to rise, Florida lawmakers are looking to implement some statewide safety regulations, but the bills filed ahead of the session may get watered down in their first committee stops this week.
From just three in 2023 all the way up to 115 in 2025, Wolfson Children’s Hospital has seen the number of annual patients treated for e-bike crash injuries increase by more than 3,800 percent over the past four years.
For Mike Rainka, those stats are concerning enough that when he came to purchase a bike for his son on Monday, e-bikes were off limits.
“Not until he gets much older and much more responsible. I’ve seen way too many unfortunate accidents with children and adults alike,” said Rainka.
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State law doesn’t do much to regulate e-bikes.
There’s no age limit, no restrictions on where you can ride them and no licensing requirements.
Even at the local level, there are few rules.
Locally, St. Johns County and Atlantic Beach both restrict e-bikes to 10 miles per-hour on pedestrian paths, but that’s about it.
“A lot of parents are buying these things for kids. They’re too accessible,” said Jeffrey Page, owner of Open Road Bicycles.
Page said he feels like it’s beyond time to set some statewide standard limitations.
“Especially for the parents. If the kids get caught on these things, the parents should be liable,” said Page.
Initially, it seemed Florida lawmakers may have been ready to take some concrete action.
Bills filed in the House and Senate would require a learner’s permit or driver’s license to operate Class III e-bikes, which can hit speeds of 28 miles per hour or higher.
They would also add e-bike-specific questions on driver’s tests.
But amendments filled by the House and Senate sponsors will likely water down the bills.
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Those amendments would remove the license requirements and instead commission a task force to study e-bike safety policy options.
They would also require law enforcement to track e-bike crash stats and allow agencies to ticket e-bike riders if they fail to slow down to 10 miles per hour or less when riding within 50 feet of pedestrians on shared walkways.
But Rainka wonders how that could be enforced.
“It seems like a more kind of a blanket regulation, either 16 years old or a learner’s permit would make much more sense than just letting people kind of do whatever they want,” said Rainka.
The Senate bill is up for its first hearing on Tuesday, and the House bill gets its first hearing on Wednesday.
From there, both bills will have two more committee stops each before reaching the House and Senate floors.
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