Summary
May 29th, 2026
Senator Blakespear
1021 O Street, Suite 7720
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: SB 1167 Vehicles – Electric bicycles – support
Dear Senator Blakespear,
On behalf of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, I write in support of your authored bill, SB 1167, that clarifies the definition of an electric bicycle by prohibiting the advertisement, sale and labelling of vehicles that are not legal electric bicycles, standardizing the location of e-bike labels, and requiring law enforcement to include label information in incident reporting for better data collection.
Marin is proud to be a national leader in youth e-bike safety, recently adopting first-in-the nation laws to limit throttle (Class 2) e-bikes to riders over 16. This was in response to Marin being one of the first regions in the nation to begin collecting 911 injury data based on whether it involved a conventional bicycle or an e-bike. Marin's data has demonstrated that the e-bike accident rate in Marin for 10-15-year-olds is 5x higher than for all other age groups, compared to only a 1.5x higher accident rate on conventional bikes.
Marin sponsored Assemblymember Damon Connolly's AB 1778 (2024) which enabled Marin jurisdictions to pass local ordinances to limit throttle e-bikes (Class 2) to riders 16 and older and require all Class 2 riders to wear helmets. The County has also launched an “E-Bikers Club” public safety campaign last year for teens and parents to make them aware of Marin's new rules and encourage safe riding for teens.
However, we know there is more work to do to protect our youth. Marin continues to advocate for statewide and federal legislation to address youth e-bike safety on a broader scale. Your legislation is a key piece of work that is still needed in regulating the types of e-bikes that young riders can access.
We thank you for your leadership on this important issue and look forward to further collaborations on e-bike safety.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Moulton Peters, Vice-President
Marin County Board of Supervisors
CC: Marin County Board of Supervisors
Assemblymember Damon Connolly
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