A 14-year-old boy lost an eye after crashing an e-bike on a steep hill outside Lake Oswego during a sleepover, and now police across the Portland metro area are cracking down on parents who let underage kids ride the devices. Lake Oswego police can issue a $115 ticket to a parent when the family has received prior warnings and still provided a vehicle to an unqualified driver, and the department says it has handled more than 150 emergency calls regarding dangerous riding behaviors since April.
The crackdown comes as Oregon state law requires riders to be at least 16 years old to operate an e-bike or e-scooter, according to KPTV. Despite the requirement, oregon law enforcement officials reported that many parents and young riders remain unaware of the age restriction, and Lake Oswego police officers say they have stopped numerous riders aged 14 and 15 — and even children as young as 9. More than half of those stops involved a child who was unfamiliar with basic traffic laws, officers reported.
“Young people under 16 should not be riding electric bikes and scooters,” Lake Oswego Police Sgt. Harper said, per the same KPTV report. When officers pull over an underage rider, they can impound or secure the ride, then contact the parents to come pick up both the device and their child. The Lake Oswego City Council is now considering an ordinance that would clarify where electric devices can operate and who is allowed to ride them.
Statewide Law Followed a Bend Teen's Death
Oregon's 16-and-older minimum age traces back to House Bill 4103, known as Trenton's Law, which the legislature passed in March 2024 after 15-year-old Bend resident Trenton Burger was killed in June 2023 when a van collided with his e-bike along Highway 20, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. The law established a three-tiered e-bike classification system under ORS 801.258 and made it a Class E traffic violation, punishable by up to a $100 fine, for a parent to knowingly let a child operate a Class 2 or 3 e-bike on public roads.
That penalty structure is about to shift. Oregon lawmakers passed House Bill 4007 in March 2026, which will lower the minimum age to operate Class 1 pedal-assist e-bikes from 16 to 14 starting January 1, 2027, Hoodline reported in its coverage of a Clackamas County e-bike theft. The change leaves higher-speed, throttle-equipped Class 2 devices restricted to riders 16 and older even as Class 1 bikes open up to younger teens.
School Districts Already Banning Devices From Campus
The Lake Oswego School District has barred e-bikes and e-scooters from elementary and middle school properties, and the Beaverton School District has adopted the same restriction. Both districts require parents to retrieve any device that an underage student brings to campus. Meanwhile, the wider Portland metropolitan area has experienced a surge in safety complaints and serious e-bike and e-scooter wrecks, with crashes across the region resulting in deaths.
Statewide numbers back up what officers are seeing on the street. Emergency department visits for e-bike injuries climbed from 392 in 2023 to 683 in 2024 and reached 760 in just the first nine months of 2025, according to Oregon Health Authority data reported by Willamette Week. E-scooter injury visits followed a similar climb, more than doubling from 211 in 2021 to 509 during the first nine months of 2025, per data cited by KGW, which also noted the state attributed 17 motorized scooter fatalities to traffic crashes between 2018 and 2025, including seven in 2025 alone.
Neighboring Cities Are Adding Their Own Rules
Lake Oswego is not alone in tightening enforcement. The West Linn City Council passed Ordinance 1772 in June 2026, setting local fines of $115 to $250 for sidewalk or underage e-bike riding and explicitly letting officers issue stackable citations directly to parents, according to the Lake Oswego Review. West Linn police reportedly conducted educational stops and handed out informational cards before the citations took effect.
Other districts have shown that campus restrictions can move the needle. After Bend-La Pine Schools enforced an e-bike campus ban in April 2024, Bend Fire and Rescue recorded youth e-bike crash emergency responses drop from at least six in 2023 to just one in 2024, the Bend Bulletin reported. In Happy Valley, police launched a targeted summer micromobility enforcement initiative in July 2026 focused on reckless riding, excessive speed, and unauthorized sidewalk use across local parks and trails.
Regional agencies are also pairing enforcement with education. In May 2026, municipal officials, police officers, and medical trauma staff from Randall Children's Hospital formed the Tualatin Coalition for E-Safety to build middle-school education campaigns addressing the rise in youth micromobility crashes, according to the Tualatin Times. For now, Lake Oswego police continue urging community members to report reckless riding or children operating e-bikes in traffic to emergency dispatchers, as the city council weighs its own ordinance to spell out exactly where these devices can go and who can legally ride them.
