JERRY COLLAMER, San Clemente
Happy holidays, Council. As our e-bike craze whizzes on, to what dangerous result?
There were two first-hand observations on the rainy Dec. 29:
First, on the corner of Crown Valley Parkway and Cabot Rd., aka Costco, there was an e-biker, sitting in the left-turn lane, on an e-bike that looked every bit an off-road motorcycle.
There was no license plate, no brake light. The helmeted teenage cyclist, as the signal changed, zoomed off into a left turn onto Cabot from Crown Valley, amid the heavy traffic and light rain. The cyclist continued up Cabot, northbound, in traffic, at speed. Just sayin’.
The second instance was at North Beach, around a complex neighborhood corner—West Escalones to West Canada, where there’s a blind intersection. Five streets tangle together there, aka dangerous, with limited visibility, and should be approached with extreme caution—
slowly—as I do every day.
A teen boy and his e-bike whiz through the intersection, never looking. Had either of us arrived two seconds earlier into the rainy, blind intersection—whammo. He never saw me.
The e-bike craze is nuts, especially among teens.
Hello, San Clemente moms and dads. And Council? Anyone home? Dare I say, we’ve all witnessed a version of what I’ve described. It’s impossible not to.
They’re whizzing by everywhere, too often with two aboard, sometimes three aboard.
Hopefully, San Clemente and every South OC city rein in e-bikes. They are fast, unlicensed, out of control, two-wheeled, motorized vehicles. A teenager’s dream machine come true, until it isn’t.
This will end badly, if not strictly supervised—now.
My vote: don’t allow anyone under the age of 18 on an e-bikes, period. And, fully license e-bikes.
Same as every gas-powered motorcycle in the state of California is required to be. Because they are an e-motorcycle.
Someone better step up to the plate quickly, before disaster strikes a San Clemente child on an e-bike.
