Traumatic brain injuries, lengthy hospital stays, and funerals. The surge in e-bike crashes is forcing American cities into a heated debate over whether the solution lies in registration laws, infrastructure changes, or something else entirely.
The numbers tell a stark story. E-bike injuries jumped from 1,600 nationwide in 2018 to 23,000 by 2022. New York City alone saw 901 injuries in 2025, a 41% spike from the year before. Seventeen people died in e-bike crashes in the city in 2024. In Tampa Bay, at least 28 fatalities over five years have upended emergency medicine protocols. Two California towns near San Diego declared states of emergency after fatal crashes.
Roberta Simon, a Manhattan attorney, was walking in Central Park last August when a teenager on an e-bike struck her down. She woke four days later with a traumatic brain injury, 40 staples in her head, and a breathing tube. Six months passed before she could return to normal life. "I can't stress enough how lucky I am," she said.
The backdrop to this crisis is explosive market growth. E-bike sales climbed from 50,000 units in 2018 to 527,000 in 2022. The industry has ballooned from roughly $4.4 billion in 2026 to a projected $6.2 billion by 2031.
At Bellevue Hospital in New York, trauma surgeon Dr. Ashley Pfaff reported seeing e-vehicle injuries "every single day." Between 2018 and 2023, micromobility incidents accounted for 7% of all trauma visits there. Nearly 69% of those patients required hospitalization, and almost a third needed intensive care.
The registration divide
The central fault line runs between those demanding registration and licensure versus those fighting for better streets and infrastructure.
Priscilla's Law, named after a preschool educator killed by an electric Citi Bike rider in Manhattan in 2023, would require e-bikes and e-scooters to register with the state and display license plates. Proponents argue cameras could then catch speeders and red-light runners the same way they catch cars.
"Police can't chase down bikes," said Janet Schroeder, co-founder of the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance. "But with plates, e-bikers breaking laws would be caught by traffic cameras, just like cars."
Michelle Cruz, whose father Luis was killed last year when struck by an e-biker running a stop sign in Brooklyn, supports the law. Her father had been making a food delivery for Uber at the time. "It would be best that they do get a license and have their license plates and have to follow the same regulations as cars," she said.
New Jersey recently passed exactly such a law, requiring e-bike licenses, registration, and insurance. California lawmakers are considering similar measures.
But Transportation Alternatives, a road safety group, flatly opposes registration. The measure would force the city to create an "absolutely massive new agency" and make changes that are "not going to make anyone safer," said Alexa Sledge, the organization's director of communications.
"When we think about e-bike crashes and deaths related to e-bikes, the vast majority are cars and trucks killing people on e-bikes," Sledge noted. "What we really want to see is an improved and expanded infrastructure to protect people that are biking, protect people that are walking."
The group advocates instead for protected bike lanes, raised crosswalks, removing parking spots near intersections for better visibility, and expanded public bike-sharing. Sledge challenged the registration camp: "How does a wider bike lane make an e-biker stop speeding? How does a wider bike lane make an e-biker stop running a red light?"
Ligia Guallpa, co-founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos, a delivery workers advocacy group, raised a different concern. Registration could become a tool for police to target undocumented immigrants, who often work for food delivery companies. She supported the city's new 15-mph speed limit but opposed criminalization tactics. "Rather than deploying more cops in our streets to continue to criminalize and over-police communities who are already being penalized," the city should push manufacturers to build speed governors into bikes, she said.
The current New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has revoked the criminal summons policy for low-level cycling offenses. Under his administration, riders now receive tickets like motorists do. Mamdani is instead pushing delivery companies to provide trip-level data on safety incidents and supporting time standards for deliveries to discourage reckless speed.
Toronto considered a registration system but abandoned it, determining the bureaucracy wasn't worth the effort. People for Bikes opposed New Jersey's law, saying it imposed "burdensome restrictions on low-speed e-bikes while leaving higher-risk vehicles like electric mopeds and motorcycles without additional regulations."
Transportation Alternatives warned that registration would lead to "unnecessary police stops of cyclists and create unequal enforcement by police officers."
Schroeder countered that accountability matters. "Traffic cameras don't discriminate," she said. "When an e-bike rider leaves somebody bloody on the ground, they should be held accountable."
Author James Rodriguez: "This is a false choice between safety and immigrants' livelihoods. The real culprit is companies squeezing delivery workers into a race against time, and cities should regulate them first."
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