Getting a Handle on Biking Laws in Santa Barbara

When Santa Barbara Police Chief Kelly Gordon came by the Ordinance Committee on Tuesday to discuss potential changes to the city’s bicycle ordinance — intended to make the streets safer and tighten the laws regarding e-bikes  — she wanted to make it clear for the public that the new bike laws weren’t intended to criminalize cycling. 

Instead, she said, the changes were meant to curb “bad actors” and allow law enforcement to open up a dialogue with parents who may be unaware of their children’s dangerous riding.

“This is not about any of us being against cyclists,” Chief Gordon said. “This is about having safety for everyone and having the appropriate tools to change the behavior that we’re seeing with a lot of our e-bicyclists.”

She also said that the changes weren’t initiated by the police department or city attorney; the idea, she said, came after repeated requests from residents and specific recommendations made by the City Council. City staff then met with several departments and looked into other California cities dealing with similar problems to craft an ordinance that could work here in Santa Barbara.

Currently, the city’s bicycle ordinance does not explicitly include e-bikes, which have boomed in popularity ever since the pandemic. The changes would place e-bikes on the same level as bicycles, simplifying the language and condensing everything in one chapter. Infractions could now be handled administratively, instead of through the traffic courts, with citations starting at $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second, and up to $500 for three offenses in one year.

The major change, based on a similar policy in Huntington Beach, would allow police to impound a juvenile’s e-bike if they are found to be riding in an unsafe manner. Violations include riding against the flow of traffic, not yielding to vehicles or pedestrians when required, carrying passengers when not designed for carrying passengers, or riding without a helmet under the age of 18.

Chief Gordon explained that, while the city ordinance would give the police the ability to impound bikes, it was intended to allow police to have a conversation with the parents. And it wasn’t meant to be enforced in every situation.

“It is not the intention for us to go start impounding a lot of juveniles’ bikes,” Gordon said. “But we have juveniles we contact numerous times, and we want to make sure that we have a mechanism to then involve a parent.”

Gordon shared data on all collisions reported to police since the pandemic, which showed that there has been an uptick in incidents in the past two years. In 2023, there were 73 collisions, with e-bikes considered at fault in 32 incidents; and in 2024, there have already been 80 incidents, with e-bikes reported at fault in 48.

But in general, the reports showed that e-bikes were far more in danger of being hit by a vehicle than pedestrians were in danger of being hit by an e-bike. Since 2022,  e-bikes have been hit by minivans, motorcycles, cars, pickups, and SUVs more than 70 times. By comparison, e-bikes have only been reported to hit pedestrians four times over the past three years.

But there is also a large number of smaller-scale incidents, Chief Gordon said, that aren’t reported to police at all. “We know there’s a lot of those interactions that are not captured statistically,” she said.

Several members of the public shared their concerns about the changes, some of which prohibited specific actions such as wheelies, swerving, or riding more than two-abreast. 

Advocates with MOVE S.B. said that they weren’t against the ordinance amendments altogether, but felt that there were some things that needed to be addressed before being approved by the full council.

“These are kids having fun.… People have been doing wheelies for a hundred years, and they’re going to keep doing them,” said Mark Sapp with MOVE S.B. “I don’t want to see these kids all on their phones playing video games. I love seeing them out there doing something physical. So I think we need to take a step back and give them a break.”

Assistant City Attorney John Doimas explained that law enforcement would be able to use discretion for citations, and that most of the changes were already mirrored in the vehicle code, common California guidelines, and policies established in the emergency State Street ordinance in March 2023. What’s different, he explained, are the tools allowing for more conversation and clear education about violations.

Doimas said that officers would use the “reasonable person standard,” which allows for certain actions that were technically illegal, as long as they weren’t causing an immediate danger. 

“There are sections in there talking about not swerving,” Doimas said. “Well, if you have to swerve to avoid a collision, that situation would be reasonable — you wouldn’t be getting a violation for that. But if you’re just swerving to do tricks and all that, that’s different.”

There were also questions about special events and group rides, which would be technically forbidden but allowed as an exception, with Chief Gordon saying enforcement would be more about the “spirit of the law.”

The committee members were supportive of the changes, but wanted to make sure that all concerns were being taken under consideration.

Councilmember Kristen Sneddon, who said she is not a personal fan of wheelies, wanted to be sure that the city was not outright outlawing the practice altogether. She also said that dangerous riding was not just the teens, but an overall bicyclist behavior problem.

“I’m a bicycle rider too, and I have been unsafely treated by people of different ages — an older gentleman than myself told me to ‘get out of the way, grandma’ — so it’s not just young people; it’s a behavior thing,” Sneddon said.

Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez, an avid cyclist who is often seen around town on his e-bike, said he was “taking his bike helmet off” to look at this issue from the city’s perspective.

“I’ve gotten enough reports from residents, business owners, employees, city staff, and I have personally witnessed enough bad actors for me to have to do something more than what we’ve been doing,” he said.

The changes have not been officially approved, though the ordinance committee agreed to send discussion forward to the City Council, where the public and other councilmembers will have a chance for input and any recommendations.