SHOCKING! The #1 Cause of EBIKE Accidents! You'll Never Guess What It Is!

What's the number one cause of e-bike accidents? Stick around to find out.

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry, and today I'm joined by Jennifer.

Jennifer is an expert in e-bike safety and puts on her courses in education for children and adults, and today she's going to disclose to us the number one and number two reasons for e-bike accidents.All right Jennifer, thanks for joining us today.

Dustin: So Jennifer's put on lots of educational classes, sometimes a hundred or more people, educating about e-bikes and the safety of it, especially with kids, because it's very important to educate children about the rules of the road, things like that, and so you're dialed into everything e-bike, accidents, ticketing, whatnot, so share with us what's the number one cause of e-bike accidents.

Jennifer: So the number one, and this is, there's a nice little diagram in the DMV handbook of this accident itself, is when you have parked vehicles on one side, and you have the bike lane that's running alongside the parked cars, is a driver exiting their vehicle. Now as a driver, right, and I teach the kids who do not have their licenses yet when we go to get out of a car, we're not looking behind us, we're just getting out of our car, there's no need for us to be extra cautious because we know we have room. After all, there's a bike lane there, right, for our door to open.

What bicyclists understand, what drivers understand, is that when we're riding those bikes on that bike lane, if that passenger were to open that door, we hit the door. So, during my classes, I bring my bike and I show kids what can happen, the bike will be fine, bike will stay right there next to the driver, however, will either be through the window if it's open, up and over, or you're going to go to left, into traffic, which is devastating. So the number one is, the driver's getting out, and you just bump in their door.

Dustin: And what do you teach them about how to avoid that, or what's the best, yeah, approach?

Jennifer: So the best way to avoid that is just to be aware, right, so as we are riding, and I teach these kids, look for brake lights, right, that's an indicator, probably your number one indicator, there's a person inside that vehicle. Brake lights here, if it's a truck, you got the tailgate lights, you got all kinds of options to look out for. Number two would be just movement, any kind of movement in a vehicle.  If there's a person there, go slow, please, please, please go slow. You can't quite get out of your lane, because if you are, then you'll be swerving into traffic and you're all over the place. But just be aware if there's movement, and lights are your number one thing to look for.

Dustin: Got it. Yeah, if you've ever seen the movie, This is 40, Paul Rudd takes his road bike out, and that's exactly what causes his accident. Someone opens the door, he goes through, it's not funny, it's funny in the movie, not funny in real life. But that's interesting, so you're saying in the DMV packet, is it a safety packet, or what is it?

Jennifer: It's just that generic packet that you can pick up, and you can see it online too.

Dustin: And it just has a photo?

Jennifer: It has a little black and white photo of a car door open, a little like electric things going up like this, and then the bike just right at the door.

Dustin: Interesting, interesting. Well, that's, yeah, news to me, I would have never thought that was the number one. Now as a bonus, what's the number two reason you're seeing accidents caused on your bikes?

Jennifer: And this is mainly kids who aren't paying attention for whatever reason, are crashing into electrical boxes that are located on sidewalks. They can't quite judge, or they misjudge the actual width of how much room we have to get by on a sidewalk, which is why we don't advise riding on sidewalks. But those electrical boxes, they're big, and they cause damage because they are solid metal.

Dustin: Interesting, interesting. Yeah, and then what happens, the kid hits it, and goes over?

Jennifer: Yeah, there's plenty of room for them to fly, and the bike to stay.

Dustin: And so your education around that goes in the bike lane, or be more aware in general, or slow down?

Jennifer: I mean if there isn't a bike lane, and you're not comfortable riding in a lane with a car, you're just gonna have to go slow, really slow. If you're afraid, walk it. I know with my bike, sometimes I'll have my surf rack on it, and I need to remind myself how wide I am that day because I have myself almost tapped a fire hydrant trying to get around to the beach. And you just kind of misjudge, you kind of take it for granted, and if that's me as a grown-up, aware of my surroundings, a child who's a lot less aware, isn't going to figure it out.

Dustin: Yeah, yeah. You know, one other thought I had too, is I ride a lot of electric trikes, obviously at sixthreezero, we specialize in e-trikes, and I like to ride on the sidewalk, especially on my trikes. I'm going a little slower, but there are a lot of light posts, and there are a lot of electrical boxes. I know I have to slow down, and I am a little nervous because obviously, I have the width.

And one thing I will say, a customer came in this week, and she was very smart. She went out and measured on her route the distance between them, it was two posts, it wasn't an electrical box, but a similar situation. And she wanted to make sure that the trike would clear the pivotal points on her route.

So you know, she's putting in that extra effort to plan her routes. Now again, you don't want to spend a lot of money on a trike that you can't even take in the route that you're typically going to ride, but you know, I think it's still a smart move, and I get it. These kids are zigging in and out of these very tight spaces.

So there you have it, the number one and two reasons that cause e-bike accidents. If you have any other questions or comments, put them below in the comments, or email us at theteam@sixthreezero.com, or call us at 310-982-2877. Also, we'll have a link in the description below if you want to get in touch with Jennifer and get some more e-bike education.

She also can put together classes or educate children and adults, so if you're interested, check out the description below. And join our Facebook group called sixthreezero Pedalers. There are thousands of members in that group.

You can connect with other sixthreezero e-bike riders, ask them questions, see about their experience, and of course, you can check out our full selection of e-bikes on our website at sixthreezero.com. So thanks for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.