Some Poway Unified School District parents describe before and after school pickup as a circus. They say it’s earned the name partially because of the traffic but also because of the e-bikes and the way some kids ride them.
“They’re zooming,” parent Laura Haver said. “They're like popping wheelies, racing … but they're going through this huge crowd of kids."
Parents and administrators are on the same page about e-bikes being all the rage.
“They were nowhere, and now they're everywhere,” interim PUSD Superintendent Greg Mizel said, adding that they’re similar to a motorcycle in function but also injuries. “There's more pelvic fractures. Pelvic fractures are more common in motorcycle accidents. They're not so common in bicycle accidents, so these are different.”
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Trauma specialists at Rady Children’s Hospital report e-bike injuries are the most common ones they treat.
Starting next month, Poway Unified will hold free mandatory safety classes for student riders and a parent chaperone. They’ll learn the rules of the road, how to properly wear a helmet and ride an e-bike safely.
Mizel said something else that flies under the radar is insurance liability.
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“When my child's out there in a car and a novice driver, they're fully insured,” he said. “When my child's out there on an e-bike, they're not, so if something terrible happens and they're at fault, that's on me.”
Haver’s kids would want to ride, but she’s not ready to say yes.
“Everyone does what's best for them and their families, but for us, we're just like, ‘Eh,’ we've seen too many things,” she explained.
To give students and parents plenty of time to take a class, the district will start enforcing this new requirement in January. At the class, students will need to register their e-bike’s make and model, VIN number and student ID.
