Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The East Aurora Village Board approved a law that will give the police more teeth in enforcing e-bike laws, in particular, underage e-bike usage.
East Aurora Police Chief Patrick Welch says the law reiterates a lot of current established New York state law and the vehicle and traffic law on e-bikes and e-scooters, but some parts of the law that the village passed further go a little bit further. "If an operator is under 16 years of age and they're operating the e-scooter or e-bike, police now have a mechanism in place where we can seize that bike, and it costs the parents money to get the bike out of what would be like an impound, and a third violation of that would be permanent seizures," says Welch. He says repeated warnings to teens was an issue this summer. "We were telling a lot of folks, 'Hey, look, you're too young. You can't ride these bikes.' There's a law against it, but we didn't have any way to actually carry it through," explains Welch.
Welch says he feels for young kids to want to be on these bikes. "I think back to when I was a child, I would have loved it if there was something available like that to ride around on. So you understand why they are on it," says Welch. But at the same time, he says they don't understand, at that age, the rules of the road or the dangers they're creating for themselves.
Welch says it has been frustrating for officers to see the same children over and over on these bikes. "We've had to make it a point where we not only are educating them, but educating their parents as well on the laws and the risk of operating under age, so that we can actually put a put a dent in it and not have it be the problem that it's been," explains Welch. He also hopes parents will step in. "After a parent has to go to the village clerk's office and pay an impound fee once or twice, hopefully they're going to take it seriously," adds Welch.
Another part of the new law in East Aurora is that a headlight and a taillight have to be on all the time when the bike's in motion, not just at night, like the state law says.