Santa Clarita City Manager Ken Striplin shared a frustrated response to residents complaining of vandalized trail signs, injuries from e-bikers and other safety concerns: “It has to start with the parents.”
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Striplin said the situation has definitely gotten worse, with impunity on the rise, across the city’s 85 miles of paseos and trails.
“We have done a number of things to try to combat the issue,” Striplin said, adding that efforts to date — which have ranged from posting the speed limit more frequently to even impounding the bikes, multiple times, in some cases — have not made a difference. It’s not unusual for the e-bike riders to flee from Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies when they try to make enforcement stops, he said.
Striplin’s latest comments came after several frustrated residents spoke at Tuesday’s City Council meeting about what they saw as a growing problem, which was especially concerning in light of recent news.
Peter Gaehler, who described himself as a daily rider of local trails, shared an incident that happened in Castaic, which involved several e-bike riders doing wheelies in front of him. When they crashed right in front of him, he was thrown from his wheelchair and broke three bones in his legs, he said.
Striplin said there were several other cities mentioned by residents during public comment, and, “We are, by far, not the worst,” he said, adding “we do not want it to get worse.”
In Huntington Beach, there have been several headlines recently that Striplin alluded to, one of which involved an alleged mob-style attack of e-bike riders in the news, which left a man bloody, and another incident that involved a crash that left an elderly man dead.
Striplin said the latter incident, which resulted in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office filing criminal charges against the e-bike rider’s parents, should serve as a “wake-up call” to the parents of riders.
“I will tell you, the answer is not to come up with a bunch of new rules — they don’t follow the rules,” Striplin said. “So telling them that they can be but they have to go 10 mph is not going to solve the problem.”
Councilman Jason Gibbs, also a parent, said he’s seen the great ways that e-bikes and other motorized vehicles can help with mobility and access, but also the potential danger to trail walkers and other riders, if the vehicles aren’t being used responsibly.
“If you’re on a 150-pound bike, even if you’re going 25 miles an hour, and you’re not paying attention, or you’re doing a wheelie and you hit someone, you will severely hurt them,” Gibbs said. “And it is really, really concerning on that front, and it’s disheartening as a father, as someone who wants his kids to understand these things and be able to use them, that we start teaching them simple respect.”
Striplin said the city is looking at how it can create greater measures of accountability, but he said what’s being done by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, in concert with the city’s efforts, needs to be backed up on the homefront.
An SCV Sheriff’s Station official said there are two options that deputies have at their disposal with respect to confiscation, based on the severity of the violation.
One was a simple confiscation for storage, which Striplin said can run north of $500, between a $286 release fee from the city, and a storage fee from a tow yard that includes an $187 towing fee and a $29 per day charge at the tow yard, which is set by the state, according to a Freeway Towing official.
If an impound is ordered, then the daily storage fee is multiplied by 30 for the duration of the hold, which runs the cost over $1,000. An SCV Sheriff’s Station official indicated Wednesday that was a much less commonly used option based on the law.
While at least 60 bikes have been confiscated, based on figures given Tuesday, Striplin pointed out how that doesn’t work as an enforcement mechanism, if the parents don’t support the effort.
“We have had young men who have been stopped, they’ve had their bikes impounded, and then we’ve had them stopped, and the same kid, with the same bike, getting impounded again. Now the parent is well aware that that kid is out there on that bike — because there’s only one way he could have gotten that bike back,” Striplin said, explaining the city’s frustration. “So, we have parents who are not holding their children accountable, and allowing them to run around.”
He said he probably “shouldn’t go this far,” but he’s personally seen a social media account where a rider who has had his e-bike confiscated, laughing about how he got his bike back. He also knows the incidents with law enforcement are being shared on social media among the teens for attention.
Until there’s “an accountability measure that makes a difference, and it starts with the parents,” Striplin said, “we’re going to continue to struggle with enforcing this and making a big impact.”
