REEDLEY — Reedley police and city officials are urging parents to help them crack down on reckless e-bike riding as enforcement of the city’s e-bike rules ramps up.
At a special meeting on Sept. 8, community members gathered to hear from Police Chief Marc Ediger and Reedley City Council members on the state of e-bike safety. This occurred eight months after the city’s e-conveyance ordinance went into effect in January.
The public discussion followed months of debate among the city council as e-bikes rise in popularity nationwide, and state regulations lag behind, as pointed out by Mayor Matthew Tuttle. Pro Tem Mayor Mary Fast cited increasing concern from community members over reckless riders across Reedley.
According to Ediger, officers have issued 16 citations and made one arrest since the ordinance was put in place. While he noted that the numbers remain low, Ediger expressed concern over recurring incidents where young e-bike riders attempted to flee from enforcement stops and sustained injuries during the getaway.
“It’s a really tricky enforcement situation when you haven’t dealt with something like an e-bike before,” Ediger said. “I don’t want to compound the situation by injuring anyone while trying to make an enforcement stop.”
Though he assured the public that local law enforcement will exercise discretion when stopping students — and in some cases, allow them to call their parents before a citation is issued — Ediger emphasized that the department ultimately hopes to prevent serious e-bike accidents from happening in Reedley.
He pointed to fatal incidents involving e-bike riders in neighboring cities like Selma, Clovis and Fresno. A recent study published by researchers at UC San Diego found that e-bike injuries in California have increased dramatically, rising from just two incidents in 2018 to 1,506 in 2024.
“We have not had a fatality yet, and we are trying to avoid that situation,” Ediger said.
In December 2025, the city council approved regulations on the use of e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards and similar forms of transportation. Among other provisions, the ordinance bans e-conveyances from public walkways, sets speed limits and prohibits those under 16 years old from riding e-conveyances capable of traveling faster than 21mph.
At the Sept. 8 meeting, police department officials reviewed the city’s municipal code as well as applicable state law, which many parents were surprised to learn prohibits those without a valid driver’s license from riding e-scooters.
While California law requires e-conveyences to be placed into one of three categories based on speed and other factors — allowing Reedley’s ordinance to place restrictions on certain vehicles — state guidelines do little to help local governments regulate certain dangerous e-bike driving practices, according to Ediger.
Reedley was one of the first cities in Fresno County to enact its own e-conveyance policy and was a major priority for the city council to jump early on while statewide action remains uncertain, according to Tuttle.
While Ediger said that officers have been in “enforcement mode” for the last few months, the department also has plans to carry out education on the regulations for young people across Reedley.
“Enforcement is not the ultimate goal. … We know we need more people involved in helping us solve this problem than just the police officers that are on the streets,” Ediger said.
He announced that officers are scheduled to visit schools in Kings Canyon Unified sometime in October to educate students on the new rules, delivering on a promise made during an earlier public forum on e-bikes back in April of this year. Educational material will include a video reviewing key guidelines from the ordinance made in partnership with the Sierra Kings Healthcare District.
Audience members also pressed police department and city officials to keep “pushing hard” on reckless e-bike riding, with many thanking staff for their attention to the issue over the last few months.
“Tonight is not the end of this discussion or the end of our effort to dial this in,” Ediger said. “I think this is something everybody needs to take a second to look at and take a little more seriously.”
