Loudoun County emergency rooms have treated 122 e-bike-related injuries so far this year, compared with just six back in 2021, according to Sheriff Mike Chapman. Most of the injured children were not wearing helmets when they crashed.
Chapman's numbers, reported by WJLA, come as the county grapples with how to handle a boom in battery-powered two-wheelers that are increasingly ending up in the emergency room instead of the driveway. The sheriff said the majority of kids hurt in these incidents were not wearing helmets, a detail he's flagged repeatedly as his department pushes parents to take the issue more seriously.
One of the more serious recent cases came on Sept. 16, when a 14-year-old was hurt after an electric dirt bike carrying two children collided with an SUV in Ashburn. The crash happened around 7:40 p.m. at Ryan Road and Blue Elder Terrace, according to the same WJLA report. It wasn't an isolated event — a June 3 crash between an e-bike and a car in Chantilly left a teenager with life-threatening injuries, and an August 2025 incident in Lucketts left two e-bike riders with life-threatening injuries after their bikes collided with each other, according to Loudoun Now.
Complaints Piling Up at the Sheriff's Office
The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office has also fielded a wave of complaints this year about e-bikes and similar vehicles. Loudoun Now reported the department had received nearly 200 complaints about the vehicles this year.
Residents could already report e-bike incidents through the online traffic complaint portal by June 16, 2026. When a complaint identifies a specific juvenile or home address, a school resource officer may follow up directly with the parent or guardian about Virginia's e-bike laws and available safety resources.
Loudoun County Public Schools, meanwhile, banned e-bikes and scooters from school campuses at the start of the 2026-27 school year, while still allowing students to ride to campus and walk the devices once they arrive, the station reported. Separately, Loudoun Now reported on a related push by Del. David Reid and the sheriff's office concerning helmet use.
A Statewide Push for Clearer Rules
Reid is working on legislation that would define e-bikes, mopeds, motorcycles and other vehicle types more clearly, including speed limits, who is eligible to ride them, and possible licensing or training requirements, Loudoun Now reported. That effort follows HB 1120, which directs the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to create a task force studying how to improve safety on electric power-assisted bicycles, motorized skateboards and scooters, electric personal assistive mobility devices, and mopeds, according to the enacted legislation.
Separately, James City County police guidance notes that legal Class 1, 2 and 3 e-bikes are treated like ordinary bicycles under Virginia law when they have operable pedals, a motor of 750 watts or less, and meet the state's other requirements, according to James City County. Not every county is seeing the same surge, however — Prince William County has reported more complaints about electric bikes but no major crashes, a police spokesperson told Loudoun Now.
The Numbers Behind the Trend
Loudoun's spike fits a broader pattern. The county saw roughly a 70% increase in pedestrian, bicycle, e-bike and other electric-device crashes during the first five months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to WTOP. Nationally, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco found that e-bike injuries jumped from 751 in 2017 to more than 23,000 in 2022 — an increase of more than 3,000% — while e-scooter injuries rose by more than 564% over the same span, as reported by Safety+Health.
E-bikes still made up only about 7% of U.S. bicycle sales by unit volume in 2024, compared with 53% in Germany — suggesting the American e-bike wave may still be in its early innings.
Shared mobility is scaling up too. Lime, the electric scooter and bike rental company, reported $886.7 million in revenue in 2025, up from $686.6 million the year before, alongside 3.8 million monthly active users, according to a report from Yahoo Finance.
Battery Fires Add Another Layer of Risk
A fire tied to a faulty e-bike battery in a New York City shop spread to nearby apartments and killed four people, according to the Associated Press. A separate 2022 Manhattan apartment fire linked to an e-bike battery sent dozens to the hospital — the New York Times reported the incident injured almost 40 people, while Bicycling magazine put the toll at 43 injured during the rescue.
The danger has pushed some New York City landlords to ban e-bikes from their buildings altogether. Citywide, e-bike and scooter fires spiked by almost 800% from 2019 to 2023, causing $518.6 million in damage, and a 2024 Consumer Product Safety Commission report estimated 373 people died in battery-related fires nationwide between 2017 and 2023, according to Bicycling.
Other States Are Already Drawing Lines
Virginia isn't alone in trying to sort faster electric vehicles from traditional e-bikes. New York lawmakers have introduced legislation to outlaw e-motorcycles entirely, while a proposed New York definition would classify any motorized device capable of exceeding 20 mph — if not already defined as an e-bike or e-scooter — as an e-motorcycle, according to the Altoona Mirror.
Colorado passed a 2025 law making it illegal to market an e-motorcycle as an e-bike, and Washington state enacted a law clarifying that electric vehicles traveling faster than 20 mph are not e-bikes, while also forming a work group to recommend e-motorcycle regulations. Minnesota legislation under consideration would expand the state's motorcycle definition to include electric bikes with motors of at least 1,500 watts capable of exceeding 30 mph, and an Illinois bill would require licenses and insurance for gas or electric bikes that exceed 28 mph by designating them motor-driven cycles.
