In January, outgoing New Jersey governor Pat Murphy signed a first-in-the-nation bill that sought to make roads safer for everyone.
S-4834, passed by a wide bipartisan margin and sponsored by state Senate president Nick Scutari, was motivated by the “dramatic increase” in ebike use, which “created greater dangers for their operators, other motorists, and pedestrians,” Scutari wrote in a statement. Several teenagers in his district and elsewhere in the state had died on two-wheeled motorized vehicles, including a 13-year-old boy who died last fall after colliding with a landscaping truck.
The new law requires anyone who owns and rides a bike with pedal-assist tech or a throttle to be at least 15 years old and to have a license, either a driver’s license or a motorized bicycle license. (Riders can receive a stand-alone motorized bicycle only after passing a road test.) Riders must register their ebikes with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), and anyone on a bike that can travel faster than 20 mph must have insurance.
Now advocates in the state and elsewhere in the country say that one of the country’s first big experiments with ebike licensing is a slow-moving mess. Riders reported widespread confusion at local MVC branches, where workers have appeared uninformed about the new rules and have even reportedly run out of registration stickers. People with years-old ebikes who can’t provide proof of purchase have been told to pay sales tax again. Agency buildings lack bike parking and are hard to reach by public transit. Enforcement of the law is spotty and inconsistent. Ebike-loving vacationers have reported avoiding the state altogether. And ebike sales, which boomed during the pandemic, have fallen off a cliff.
“They have vilified ebikes,” says Scott Chambers, owner of Zippy’s Bikes in Wildwood, New Jersey. His store has seen a 90 percent annual decline in ebike sales and a 50 percent overall decline. With most of last year’s inventory unsold, the shop’s future is “bleak,” he says. “It’s hard to play catch-up.” The New Jersey E-Bike Coalition, which formed in response to this law, says 37 bike shops have closed statewide.
New Jersey is just one of many places grappling with questions about ebikes. Across the country, reports of reckless riding, speeding, and dangerous collisions, especially among teenagers, have lawmakers looking for new ways to crack down on motor-assisted bikes. Lawmakers in California, Illinois, and New York have proposed their own ebike licensing schemes, though none have passed. New York’s City Council backed down from a licensing proposal this summer.
At the same time, workers, leisure riders, and everyday errand-runners have come to depend on ebikes, which are cheaper to buy, fuel, and store than cars. “I’m a little bit in limbo,” says Karin Vanoppen, a Jersey City resident who hasn’t ridden her pedal-assisted bike, which she uses to scale steep hills and pick up groceries, since the state began enforcing the rule in July. Vanoppen doesn’t have a driver’s license—she has never needed one—and says the state’s testing locations are all more than an hour’s ride away, some on roads where ebikes aren’t legally allowed to ride. At a legislative hearing, one lawmaker suggested that those who can’t drive ask their parents to transport them to their ebike road tests. “I guess my 85-year-old mother has to come,” Vanoppen says.