by: Gavin Leonard
Do you ride an e-bike to school? Well, if you do, often or not, you should still be informed. If you didn’t already know, our school was affected by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District significantly changing e-bike rules for middle and high school students. Newport-Mesa had established board policy (BP) 5142.04 to boost student safety. This policy comes with a lot of regulations that students should know about.
Firstly, the new middle school policy makes it so middle school students are prohibited from bringing e-bikes and e-motos on school property. Maybe if you thought you were safe, instead of riding an e-bike to school, you could ride an e-scooter to school; those are actually prohibited on the whole campus for every grade 7-12. So basically, if a middle schooler does not have a ride to school, then they can either walk or will need to take a normal bicycle, and if they can’t do that, they can resort to taking the bus.
Now to cover how these changes affect high school e-bike riders. High school students are able to ride e-bikes to school, but with some restrictions. Under the California law powerful electric dirt bikes (e-motos like Surrons or Talarias) are considered as off-highway vehicles and are prohibited for all grade levels. If a high school student has a legal e-bike that meets the requirements and wants to ride it to school, they need safety education first. The student needs to complete the California Highway Patrol (CHP) safety training, pass a quiz, and also display a clearly visible permit sticker that you can get from the office after passing the safety quiz.
These strict new e-bike rules make some people happy and others not so happy. There are many parents and students who are very angry about these new policies. More specifically, parents that have kids who go to Ensign. These parents wrote a whole article on how they dislike the new policies and wrote how they are not beneficial. They mentioned some things like how lots of e-bike rider kids park their bikes on the side of streets and how the pickup lines are backed up for up to 30 minutes. Zero students are able to ride or park e-bikes on the Ensign campus, but before the new policy, 40% of Ensign’s approximately 900 students rode bikes to and from school. That is more specifically 360 kids that would mainly ride e-bikes, which now they can’t ride.
Middle school students’ e-bikes are parked on a Newport Beach public street near Ensign Intermediate School on Monday, August 24. Credit: Alex Williamson
Here at Costa Mesa High School I interviewed the assistant principal Mr. Mason to see his thoughts on the changes. I asked him whether the process of getting the policy implemented was up to the school or the board and was it easy or difficult. Mr. Mason responded with “The district had guidelines in it but it was decided by the school board and we just support and enforce the policy.” I also asked to hear his thoughts on the changes in general and how he thought it affects the students. He said “The change gives kids in middle school something to look forward to, to go from pedal bikes then to something with power is a change they should prepare for. And from a safety perspective I think it is helpful and I’m glad high school is still allowed to use e-bikes. I think the students in middle school and high school have been really responsible with it too.”
Now you know, the new e-bike policy has some mixed thoughts and opinions. Students, parents, and staff all have their own thoughts about the policy. Even though some people may not agree with the policy it is meant to keep students safe. Students who ride e-bikes will adjust to the policy, and overall, these new rules will make e-bikes at school safer for everyone.
