PEABODY — The City is weighing its options on how to manage its current public safety issue regarding electric bicycles and scooters, some of which can go up to nearly 30 miles per hour and have been the cause of motor vehicle accidents and pedestrian concerns.
Police Capt. Scott Richards attended City Council’s Nov. 13 Municipal Safety Sub-Committee meeting to address what ordinances the City has in place, what issues the Police have with enforcing the ordinances, and the usage of e-bikes downtown.
“A lot of people seem to think electric bikes are qualified or categorized as a motor vehicle. They are not,” Richards explained. “The Commonwealth has not referred to them as motor vehicles, so they don’t fall under the motor vehicle laws. They do, however, fall under the bicycle laws.”
He added that the sole distinction between the regulations for bikes and e-bikes was that bikes are allowed on sidewalks all throughout Peabody except for the downtown business district, but e-bikes are not permitted to be on any sidewalks anywhere in Peabody.
He noted, “We have a lot of complaints (about) the e-bikes being up on the Independence Greenway and flying up and down the Independence Greenway — and unfortunately, in the city ordinance that we have, that is not addressed… Bicycles are allowed on those roads because it’s considered a bike path as well.”
Richards added that Recreation Department Director Jen Davis’ preference was for e-bikes to not be permitted on those “walkways.”
Ward 1 Councilor Craig Welton later asked Richards’ thoughts on creating a speed limit on the bike paths, and Richards said that wouldn’t be “too practical,” as the Police would have to enforce that speed limit; Welton withdrew his suggestion.
When considering issues the Police face in enforcing e-bike safety, Richards said, “When you see a group of kids flying up the street on e-bikes, and we, as the Police, approach them and tell them to stop… how many people in this room think those kids are actually going to stop? They don’t. They take off. They’ll try to run up a driveway or fly up a side street or whatever.”
He said this “poses a dilemma” for the Police because they don’t want to engage in “hard pursuit” of the kids on e-bikes. Richards shared one solution to this issue: getting the dangerous usage of e-bikes on video. He urged local businesses and residents to send any recordings they have to the Police.
“I have no problem sending somebody to the house to cite the kid and seize their bike for the 15 days that the law allows us to do,” Richards said. “It’s an aggressive enforcement that we would have to take, and it would have to be a concerted effort to do it, but I certainly think we can do that.”
He continued, “Beyond that, I’m not really sure what else — until the Commonwealth gives us some guidance on this — we can do about it.”
Richards added that, often when the Police receive a call regarding actively dangerous e-bike usage, “the kids are long gone” by the time the officers arrive.
One point emphasized by Richards was that the Department doesn’t currently have the manpower to patrol e-bikes effectively. He said, “We are down enough officers now that we are very fortunate to be able to staff the minimum number of area cars per shift.” In an effort to “beef up those numbers,” Richards said he hopes to hire a group of 15 and noted that there are five currently in the police academy.
One Peabody resident spoke during the public comment portion of this meeting, first asking whether there was an age limit for e-bikes; Richards shook his head no.
The resident shared that she was concerned about the kids aged 11-12 who don’t yet know the rules of the road but are “riding these bikes, going real fast, (and) not wearing helmets.” She added that she’s “almost been run over by (the kids on e-bikes) when I’m walking.”
“I saw this kid,” the resident recalled. “I’m surprised he didn’t get killed. He was going down Lynn Street into Washington Street, near that new dental restoration place at that set of lights, and the (driver) had the green light. (They) thank God looked to the left, otherwise that kid would have been clipped and killed. It would have been awful.”
Councilor-at-Large and Sub-committee Chair Anne Manning-Martin said she has also witnessed reckless e-bike usage on sidewalks downtown.
“You can see that it’s an accident waiting to happen with people just walking blindly out onto the sidewalk,” she said. “Why would they think to look left and right on a sidewalk? And they could get clipped with a very heavy, fast-moving e-bike.”
Manning-Martin set the next steps: Richards would connect with Davis regarding suggestions to the ordinance language and come back to Council at its next meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 25.
Richards emphasized a point that Welton had made earlier in the meeting: “There are people who use e-bikes as aids to move about, so we’ve got to be careful if we’re going to do an ordinance (where) we specify exactly what we’re talking about because we don’t want to, with a broad stroke, wipe it away.”
He also addressed how parents play a role in this issue.
“The parents who are buying these bikes for these kids, the onus is kind of on them to educate their kids on how to ride these bikes and where to ride them and what to do — and I don’t think that’s been done to a certain degree,” Richards said.
He then suggested implementing education in the schools and also offering some bicycle safety classes to the public. Manning-Martin was then reminded that School Committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne had given her contact information for Safe Routes to School, and she passed that information along to Richards.
