6 events in Passaic County with a date

Pumping the Brakes

Towns join debate on e-bike safety with myriad bans and penalties

By: Colleen Wilson
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Surrounded by Norman Rockwell prints and rustic brown wall paneling,a passionate discussion broke out recently at Closter's senior center over one of the most contentious issues facing communities across New Jersey: e-bike safety.
..... Headlines of serious - sometimes fatal -crashes involving e-bikes have captured the attention of parents, kids, local officials and state lawmakers as the increasingly fast, cheap and accessible bikes equipped with throttles or pedal-assisted batteries have grown in popularity.
..... Closter Mayor John Glidden Jr. has seen his counterparts in nearby towns scrambling to grapple with the issue - some quick to ban e-bike motorized scooters and the like from sidewalks, roads and parks, and to step up enforcement with threats of hefty fines and even jail time.
..... Glidden, however, took a different approach.
..... He got in touch with EZ Ride, a nonprofit in wood-Ridge, to hold a community presentation about e-bikes. More than two dozen people attended, including council members, the chief and officers from the Police Department , local bike shop owners, residents, parents and school-age kids.
..... The goal was to suss out e-bike issues concerns and questions before the council drafts and votes on new ordinances that will attempt to increase e-bike safety in the 3.3-square-mile borough.
..... "We heard on side of the coin, we heard the other side of the coin, and it's good discussion," Glidden said after the October 28 [2025] meeting. "I started this without any preconceptions of what this action will do. We have to take some kind of an action, but I'm not user what that is. I'm going to formula my opinion about it be hearing people talk about it."
..... And talk about it they did - nearly every age group and opinion on e-bikes was represented at the meeting of more than two hours, which would have kept going if not for a last call for questions.
..... Zlaa Vainstein is a mother of two school-age sons who wants e-bikes banned and said she tired urging other parents to "please, let's stick together and not buy them e-bikes."
..... "I'm the only parent who has not broke," she said.
..... "I don't think an 11-eyar-old, 12-year-old, or 14-year-old has the capacity to get on a bike with a key, a throttle or whatever it is and actually make an informed decision, " Vainstein said. "We should come together as a community and have a law where kids are not and should not be riding e-bikes. Period. end of story."
..... Vincent Sarubbi, a lieutenant in the Closter Police Department who heads the traffic safety unit, said officials have tired to focus efforts on illegal bikes and educating parents.
..... "We want kids to be outside and riding bikes; we don't want to be the police of children ring bikes," Sarubbi said. "It's a great thing - we don't want them being behind video games and playing inside all day. Parent education is most important thing."
...... Until there is more comprehensive state or federal legislation that might require registration, insurance and other mechanisms to enforce the legality and misuse of e-bikes, "parents need to be parents," Said Closter Police Chief James Buccola.
..... "Myself and my officers, we could spend 10 hours a day stopping young kids on e-bikes or e-scooters and we're never going to solve the problem, he said.

'Don't restrict it, adapt to it'

..... Avi Malul brought his 14-year-old son, Elior, an e-bike and a motorcycle helmet and took him aorta the borough to explain there rules and signs of the road.
..... "Don't restrict it, adapt to it," Avi Malul said, comparing e-bikes to cell phones and other technology that requires responsibility. "We can go on and on and on about e-bikes and how our kids on social media are getting attacked by promoters and advertisements. We have to deal with what it is we have.
..... "Tomorrow they're going to fly with their shoes," Malul said. "Today they're ring on e-bikes."
..... Elior Malul rides his e-bike to friends' houses, to visit his grandparents and to attend soccer practice, and said it beats going by care when he can take back roads and get places aorta the borough faster.
..... "We shouldn't ban e-bikes for everyone because it kind of like ruins childhood," Elior said.
..... The teenage, who lives in Miami part of the year, said he rides there on roads and boardwalks with lanes dedicated to bikes, e-scooters and pedestrians, which is what he would like to see more of around Closter.
..... "I ride my e-scooter in the bike lane," Elior said. "Just make the street more safe and let bikes come through."
..... Avi Malul said he would support more infrastructure improvements.
..... "To ban it? No. To work together on brining some road fixing and laws whit that? Great," he said. "I'm OK if we take out the parking on the side street .. to make an e-bike lane for them to ride."

Sherill to grapple with policy

..... Closter parents aren't the only ones tussling with teenagers over e-bikes - so is New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherill.
..... "I've been really worried about these e-bikes, mainly because my son wants one," the Montclair resident told NorthJersey.com 's editorial board last month. [10/2025]
..... "I think they're dangerous as heck,: she continued, "and I'm very opposed. and I see his friends zooming around town in the dark without helmets on these e-bikes, and it sits in the back of my mind."
..... Attacking this topic in Trenton could be one of the first big policy decisions for the Democrat, who decisively won the election for governor on November 4. [2025]
..... Sherrill said she hasn't outlined formal policy ideas on this issue yet, but indicated that more requisition is needed.
..... "that;s a new area of regulations and something we need to consider, and I would have to work with the community more on that one and get more information," she said, adding hat there needs to be a clear "line" when it comes to e-bikes versus mopeds versus motorcycles.
..... "Where's the line and what can go on the paths," she said. "I'd actually need to have our policy team and experts really weigh in on this a little more before I could tell you exactly where I think the line is."

Fourth calls of e-bike

..... Senate President Nicholas Scutari, who represents parts of Somerset and Union counties, introduced legislation earlier this year [2025] to provide additional e-bike regulations.
..... Currently, there are three classes of e-bikes. The first includes bikes that have "pedal-assisted" batteries and can't go over 20 miles per hour. the second includes those with throttle that can't go over 20 miles per hour. The third tops out at 28 miles per hour and requires riders to be at least 15 years old and to have insurance and registration.
..... Scutari's legislation would:
* Create a Class IV category for bikes that go over 28 mph or have batteries over 750 watts.
* Reassign throttle-assisted e-bikes that don't go over 20 mph to the Class I category.
* Require a registration and sticker system for any e-bikes in Class II, II and IV.
* Restrict e-bike users for Class II, III and IV those 17 and older and those licensed with moped license provisions, and incorporated e-bikes into those provisions.
..... Even with tighter regulations, many parents are unaware of these laws and buy e-bikes or bikes ha look like e-bikes, but are actually pocket or dirt bikes - on amazon without knowing if they are illegal, how fast they go or whether there are any age restitutions or licensing requirements.
..... Proposals for striker state laws, local ordinances and more enforcement come despite little or no data gathered in New Jersey about the prevalence of crashes, fatalities and injuries among e-bikes and e-scooters - and what the primary reasons for those crashes are.
...... State-required crash reports have categories to identify drivers, passengers, pedal-cyclists and pedestrians - but nothing for e-bikes or e-scooters in fact, non-motorized scooter suers are sometimes classified as pedestrians. A fatal crash involving an e-bike user in Gloucester City earlier this year [2025] identified the victim as a "pedestrian" on the crash report.
..... Scutari's bill would require more data collection out e-bike crashes.

'A trans formative solution'

..... Over the last four years, New Jersey has experienced some of its worst rates of traffic fatalities with the highest number of deaths among cyclists in two decades, as well as the highest number of dearths among pedestrians in three decades.
..... Governor Phil Murphy this year [2025] signed "target Zero" legislation that aims to end traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040 by tracking crash data that can be sued to target investments for traffic-calming measures.
..... But just months after signing that law, Murphy and the state Legislature cut budgets for programs that dedicate money to pedestrian and cyclist safety projects, for the third year in a row.
..... Given the popularity of e-bikes and the state's high fatality rates among pedestrians and cyclists, safe street advocates say greater attention should be paid to improving roadways with infrastructure investments, like bike lanes, curb extensions, improved signal technology and other traffic-calming measures.
...... The surging popularity of e-bikes presents an opportunity to encourage cycling among all types of users like deliverer as, seniors aided by the pedal-assist function, parents biking children to school and young people, said Emmanuel Morgen,a co-founder of Hudson County Complete Streets, a nonprofit advocacy group.
..... E-bikes are also cheaper travel alternatives for people who can't afford cars, but commute to public transpiration hubs or cycle to work, the grocery store or medical appointments.
..... Banning e-bike users form parks and paths forces them onto roads, and many New Jersey streets are not configured to safely accommodate cyclists, Morgan said.
..... "The path forward begins with acknowledging that our roadways are public for a reason - they belong to all of us. We must safely accommodate all road users," Morgan said. "E-bikes stand to be a trans formative solution: to congestion and could reduce traffic fatalities.
..... The Target Zero commission, formed through the new law, is charged with drafting a statewide action plan by the end of the year, [2025] using a :Safe Systems" approach that emphasizes safety with reduced speeding, improved roads and post-crash care.
..... Chris Nowell, one of the EZ Ride presenters in Closter, said the Target Zero Commission should help provide a road map to municipalities, counties and the state for how to improve cycling safety broadly throughout New Jersey.
..... "This is a very holistic approach. It's not like one thing like enforcement - it's not just education, it's not just bans," Nowell said. "All of this goes together in terms of trying to find a solution that probably has many, many places to it."

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