New Jersey’s New Ebike Law Is Causing Chaos

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.