One other US state simply signed a harsh new legislation requiring licenses, insurance coverage for e-bikes

New Jersey has simply taken some of the aggressive – and controversial – steps but in regulating electrical bikes, and it’s a transfer that’s already drawing sharp criticism from biking advocates.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed a brand new e-bike legislation this week that successfully lumps all the things with a motor and two wheels right into a single class, scrapping the broadly accepted three-class system for regulating street-legal electrical bicycles. Which means pedal-assist e-bikes, throttle bikes, and high-powered e-moto-style machines at the moment are handled the identical below state legislation.

New Jersey has been pursuing stricter e-bike legal guidelines for a number of years, and it now seems to have lastly succeeded. A one-year countdown has now begun till the legislation takes impact, the place e-bike homeowners in New Jersey might want to register their bikes, carry insurance coverage, and maintain a driver’s license. Riders 14 and below are banned from utilizing motorized bicycles and scooters altogether, whereas adults with a regular driver’s license gained’t want an extra endorsement. Violators face a $50 tremendous. These 15 to 17 years of age with no driver’s license could have the choice of acquiring an electrical bike-specific license as an alternative of a regular driver’s license.

Murphy pointed to a number of latest deadly crashes involving e-bikes because the motivation behind the legislation, saying the state’s guidelines hadn’t been up to date in six years regardless of quickly growing e-bike use. The invoice was sponsored by state Senate President Nick Scutari and handed comfortably by each chambers earlier this month.

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However biking teams argue the legislation misses the actual downside.

By eliminating the broadly used three-class e-bike system, New Jersey is now treating a 20 mph pedal-assist commuter bike the identical as an electrical dust bike able to freeway speeds. Critics say that strategy creates pointless obstacles for low-speed e-bikes – typically used for commuting and transportation fairness – whereas failing to straight goal the high-powered e-motos which have been linked to lots of the most severe crashes.

“This invoice creates obstacles to growing micromobility within the state,” mentioned Debra Kagan of the New Jersey Bike Stroll Coalition, arguing that enforcement of present legal guidelines on quicker machines would have been a greater strategy.

Paradoxically, one of many legislation’s extra forward-looking parts – banning the web sale of sure high-powered e-motos to children – could get misplaced within the broader sweep of restrictions.

Low-speed rental applications like Citi Bike are mentioned to be exempt in the event that they function below municipal contracts, however for on a regular basis riders, New Jersey’s new guidelines mark a pointy departure from how e-bikes are regulated nearly in every single place else within the US.

Whether or not this strategy improves security – or just pushes riders away from e-bikes altogether – is one thing the remainder of the nation will probably be watching carefully. As extra states pursue stricter e-bike legal guidelinesone of many main advantages of e-bikes – an absence of burdensome regulation – may very well be on the decline.

through: NJ Advance Media