WINTER GARDEN, Fla. – A Winter Garden woman is petitioning for mandatory e-bike and moped safety training in Orange County public schools.
Depending on what class of e-bike you get, they can go up to 28 miles-per-hour.
Linda Sibley started the petition calling for mandatory e-bike and moped safety training in Orange County Public Schools.
She said she started this because she’s had a few close calls herself on the walking trail near her home and has changed her running routine to avoid kids on e-bikes or mopeds going to and from school.
“If there’s an e-bike or a scooter right there on your left, it’s just inevitable that something is going to happen,” Sibley said.
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“If you’re running and all of a sudden you step into the sidewalk in order to get away from something that’s there, that’s when I almost ran into somebody that was on an e-bike,” Sibley said. “All I could think of was, that could have been incredibly catastrophic for the both of us.”
Sibley said she doesn’t want the kids to have their e-bikes taken away, she just wants everyone to be able to enjoy this trail safely. She said she would like to see a training course that involves the entire family.
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“Why not offer a training to educate the parents as well as the students so the parents have an opportunity to share this education with their HOAs, other family members, with their neighborhoods, so that over time everybody is actually just empowered with this education and hopefully will have the safer sidewalks,” Sibley said.
According to OCPS and Bike/Walk Central Florida, a new e-bike safety training pilot program is already underway at select Orange County Schools.
“The curriculum covers general bike safety, helmet use, and guidance on riding scooters and e-bikes safely,” Bike/Walk Central Florida told News 6.
Bike/Walk Central Florida also said the training focuses on middle schoolers because they are rapidly adopting these devices, but lack access in formal safety training and education.
“I think that’s incredibly powerful for Orange County moving forward like this,” Sibley said. “So proactively, because we find ourselves so reactive that, you know, gosh, if only we’d had a traffic light at the intersection six months ago, that person would still be with us. Well, it’s like, okay, let’s be more proactive now.”
If you’d like to learn more about Sibley’s petition, click here.