Helmets and e-bikes: Council opts to take educational approach

In a discussion with no real action attached, the city council spent a substantial part of last week’s meeting talking about the scourge of e-bikes and electric scooters on Boulder City streets. More specifically, the discussion centered on whether the city can — or should — mandate that users of these powered devices wear helmets.

“This is something that’s kind of been concerning to me since I drive up and down Nevada Way a lot on my way home after dark. All the kids and everybody that’s out on scooters and these e-bikes and wheels and they’re going really fast,” said Councilwoman Cokie Booth, who requested that the discussion be placed on the agenda.

“My concern is that nobody in Nevada has come up with a law for these kids and this is something that’s new. It’s kind of like AI, where it’s all new to us and we don’t quite understand it. But we’re putting these kids out on these things that are going 20 or 30 miles an hour and without helmets and without any education,” Booth continued.

This turned into a discussion, not only of what the city can or can’t do, but even figuring out what the current law is.

Noting that helmet laws can be controversial, Mayor Joe Hardy said, “I’ll go back to my personal experience in the Legislature. I tried to mandate a helmet for a long board that was going fast and, boy, that was shot down quickly.”

So what is the current law? A member of the public had provided a print-out from an online source that they claimed showed that helmets were already legally mandated for riders under the age of 18 and that electric scooters were illegal for anyone under 16. Problem: The print-out was the product of a law firm and, according to both Police Chief Tim Shea and City Attorney Brittany Walker, it does not appear to be an accurate reading of the law.

After citing the difference between an e-bike and an electric motorcycle (think engine size and top speed), Shea said, “For e-bikes, there are no helmet laws that we can locate anywhere in the state. No jurisdiction has them. I checked with everybody I could find. Scooters are defined very specifically in the NRS. Some of the things you see out there are considered toys, therefore they’re not in the NRS. The single-wheeled hoverboards, they’re considered toys. The helmet laws are in place for mopeds and motorcycles. They are not in place for bicycles, skateboards or scooters.”

When asked if the city could have a more stringent law than the rest of the state, Walker replied that they could.

“Under Nevada traffic laws, it specifically authorizes local governments to make our own traffic laws and additional safety requirements like imposing a helmet requirement. I don’t believe that would be preempted,” she said. “I did reach out to the other local jurisdictions in southern Nevada to see if any of them had ever even explored a helmet law. They agreed it wouldn’t be preempted.”

For a moment, it looked like the council might be leaning toward being the pioneer in the state. But then Councilwoman Sherri Jorgensen turned the conversation toward education.

“I was just going back to the Glory Days of when I had bike rodeo when I was in kindergarten, first, second, third grade, where they came and discussed bike safety with us,” she remembered. “We brought our bikes to school. We went around the cones. We did all these things and it stuck with me, even into my adult years. So, let’s have a helmet rodeo where we give a helmet out and explain things.”

Shea picked up that thread, noting that the fire department was already working on a program.

“They’re in the preliminary stages of putting that together,” he said. “That would include giving helmets away or also working on an educational piece that talks about the safety and benefits of helmets.”

From there, the discussion turned to things the city could do short of mandating helmets. Answering a question from Booth about how police respond when they see a child riding in an unsafe manner, Shea said that issuing tickets to kids would not help the situation after noting that he came from a jurisdiction before coming to Boulder City where helmets were mandatory for all bike and scooter riders.

“What the officers have been doing is getting their parents’ number and calling them and saying, ‘Here’s what Johnny’s doing.’ Most folks, when you tell them they’re doing something wrong they stop. For the most part, I mean. I believe education is the first way to go. If you give people an even chance, I believe they’ll do it. Most most people will.”

Booth replied that she did not want to “put the issue to bed” and hoped it could be brought back up if the education approach proved ineffective.

Hardy had the last word. “There are a lot of people in Nevada who aren’t happy with the former legislator who said motorcyclists have to wear helmets. That’s all I’m going to say.”