BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — There's a new effort to protect your kids on the road as electric bikes, or eBikes, grow in popularity.
In 2022 around 500,000 eBikes were sold in the U.S. and that's expected to grow to over 700,000 annually by 2025.
But the rise in popularity comes with some safety concerns.
In July, 15-year-old Luke Guetti was killed when he was hit by a truck while riding his eBike in the Town of Tonawanda.
"I just want him to be remembered," Adam Giacomazza told 7 News. "I just don't want people to forget about Luke. Luke Guetti. Amazing person, amazing friend."
Last week, 50-year-old Yolanda Yvette Carr was killed in a hit-and-run while riding her eBike in Niagara Falls.
Her son, Dayqjuan Posey, said she was on her way home, just a few blocks down from where she was hit.
Statistics show between 2017 and 2022 more than 46,000 people ended up in the emergency room after being hurt while riding an eBike.
Now there is a new online resource to help empower riders with essential safety skills for eBikes on today's roads.
The American Bicycling Education Association is launching an innovative Teen eBike Training Program on Thursday designed to provide safety training for teenage eBike riders.
"They really need to have a course that gives them the basic rules of the road and helps them understand the components of the road, so they can use it successfully and cooperatively with other users," said Keri Caffrey, Curriculum Director of the American Bicycling Education Association.
The new training course is presented in an e-learning module and covers everything from equipment to safety checks, to laws, and how to ride an eBike correctly.
"Basically how do you avoid crashes, and this is the thing that a lot of people don't realize, which is really great, is that most motorist mistakes are predictable. We know why they happen, and as a bicyclist, we can avoid a lot of them if we just understand where the risk areas are," said Caffrey.
Once the safety course has been completed students are given a personalized certificate to show they've passed.
"People actually have been using them in court when they get a ticket to say, well, I took a class, so this will be able to be used for that purpose. It will also be able to be used, a lot of schools are requiring kids to take a class before they can get a permit to park their eBike on campus," said Caffrey.
Individual pricing for the Teen eBike Safety Course starts at $34.95. Families can take the eBike course together for around $100.
"My aim is kind of big," said Caffrey. "My aim is to not only protect kids today, to give them the tools to be safe but hopefully keep them enthusiastic about riding bicycles because they are not facing conflicts so that they can use that as a form of transportation in the future."
The Teen eBike Training Program will go live on August 15.
