New e-bike safety measures are coming to Carlsbad soon, including a minimum age of 12 for riding e-bikes and rules to strengthen and clarify Carlsbad’s existing e-bike laws. The city will launch a 30-day public information campaign in the new year to raise awareness of the new laws before they go into effect in spring 2026.

After reviewing community input and recommendations from staff and the city’s Traffic Safety & Mobility Commission, the City Council voted on Dec. 2 to move forward with the following e-bike safety measures:

• Adopt a minimum age of 12 to operate an e-bike, as allowed by Assembly Bill 2234
• Pursue legislation prohibiting riders under age 16 from transporting passengers
• Pursue legislation that would allow Carlsbad to join Assembly Bill 1778, a pilot program in Marin County that allows local agencies to require anyone riding a class 2, throttle-assisted e-bike to wear a bicycle helmet and prohibit anyone under age 16 from riding a class 2 e-bike
• Update the existing local e-bike law to clarify unsafe riding behavior, equipment requirements and the responsibilities of parents and guardians
• Prohibit e-bikes at Poinsettia and Pine Avenue Community Parks and authorize the City Manager to expand the restriction to other parks as needed, following review of community feedback and calls for service received
• Establish cost-recovery fees, as allowed under Assembly Bill 875, which individuals must pay to retrieve impounded e-bikes

Community input was an important part of this process. This fall, the city gathered more than 550 comments from community members, about 85% of whom expressed support for a minimum age of at least 12 for riding e-bikes.

Additionally, staff reviewed data on Police Department calls for service and e-bike collisions to inform the proposed safety measures.

Next steps

Following Tuesday’s meeting, staff will develop an ordinance for the City Council to review at a future meeting and pursue state legislation that would allow Carlsbad to:

• Prohibit riders under 16 from riding with passengers
• Join the e-bike pilot program in Marin County, which has a higher age limit and requires a bicycle helmet for riding class 2 e-bikes

The City Council also asked staff to gather more data on e-bike collisions that have occurred at night to evaluate an additional measure that could prohibit anyone under the age of 16 from riding an e-bike after dark. Staff will review this data and present the findings at a future City Council meeting.

More details on how the new laws will be rolled out will be available in the coming months. Sign up to receive email updates on the city’s traffic safety efforts.

Background

When Carlsbad launched its Safer Streets Together effort in 2022, outlining enforcement, engineering and education strategies to encourage traffic safety, one of the top requests from the community was to establish a minimum age for riding e-bikes. 

At the time, state law limited the city’s ability to adopt licensing and minimum age requirements, so the city co-sponsored state Assembly Bill 2234 to address this issue. The bill passed in 2024, allowing cities in San Diego County and the county itself to prohibit children under 12 from riding e-bikes.

After the bill passed, the Carlsbad City Council requested  the Traffic Safety & Mobility Commission to gather community input on the potential minimum age. Additionally, the City Council asked staff to develop strategies to address aggressive e-bike riding behavior and maintain public safety.

View the staff report or watch a recording of the meeting for more details.