LOCAL OFFICIALS DISCUSS BIKE, E-BIKE SAFETY OPTIONS

Del Mar, Encinitas, Solana Beach eyeing new local ordinances

With bicycle collisions on the rise in coastal North County, coinciding with the burgeoning popularity of ebikes, local leaders are considering ordinances and other options to make the roads safer.

The total number of traffic collisions recorded by the San Diego County Sheriff ’s Department on local roads in Del Mar, Solana Beach and Encinitas decreased slightly each year from 2018 to 2022 (the data excludes freeway collisions that are recorded by the California Highway Patrol). The only exception was in 2020, when there was a much larger dip in collisions due to decreased traffic in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Collisions rose the following year before continuing their overall decrease in 2022.

But within that data, collisions involving regular bicycles and e-bikes increased nearly 50 percent when comparing 2018 with 2022. Most of those collisions are in Encinitas. Del Mar and Solana Beach, the two smallest cities in the county, each accounted for fewer than 10 collisions involving bicycles per year from that five-year period.

In 2021 and 2022, collisions that included a bicycle or e-bike ticked up to a little more than one per week, and accounted for about 17 percent of total collisions — up from 10 percent five years prior.

Those bicycle collisions have resulted in 232 injuries to all parties involved, as well as three fatalities.

Over the past few years, council members and parents have been particularly concerned about e-bike usage. The Sheriff’s Department does not specifically track e-bike crashes; all collisions involving any type of bicycle are classified the same way. But the surge in bicycle collisions coincides with the increase in e-bikes on the roads.

E-bikes do have a lot of