In the rush to race along on e-bikes, government had some catching up to do.

State Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, didn’t get all she was hoping with her e-bike bill in the 2024 legislative session.

Levy’s House Bill 4103 did pass. It was watered down to just update Oregon’s legal definition for e-bikes to something that matches the current reality.

That is necessary. She had hoped to do more to better catch up to the changes e-bikes unleashed, such as providing an improved enforcement mechanism for police dealing with children and e-bikes. Levy told us Thursday she is going to come back in the 2025 session with some other proposals.

The Bend-La Pine Schools has also been doing some catch up on e-bikes. The school board changed the district’s policy for e-bikes this week.

Superintendent Steve Cook told the school board in January that “one of the things that was quite clear was that e-bikes are not legal for those under the age of 16.” Carrie McPherson Douglass, a school board member, said at the same meeting she was concerned that the district might be exposed to liability if its policy was not lined up with state law.

So now, the policy is.

“It involves keeping the bike or scooter at the school until a parent picks it up, and working with families to reinforce what the law states,” Scott Maben, the district’s director of communications, told us in an email.

“It’s a change in approach for us, from relying on messages only (please don’t do it, it’s the law) to some action on our part.”

What’s next?

The real difference maker in the use of e-bikes by children will be — as with so many issues — the children’s parents. It can be the rules and expectations they set. It can be whether they buy an e-bike for a child even if the child is under 16.

Levy also told us about an intriguing model adopted in California. The Carlsbad Unified School District has a policy that tries to compel more attention to safety.

In Carlsbad, for this school year, the policy was students had to apply for a permit if they were planning on biking to school — bike or e-bike.

They had to fill out an application and attend a safety presentation approved by the school district. If a student did all that, they would get a permit sticker for their bike at no charge.

Bikes without stickers would not be allowed to be brought on campus.

The policy was that the stickers would need to be renewed annually.

We are not saying Bend schools must do that or the Oregon Legislature needs to require it.

It would compel that more attention is paid to regular review of how to bike safely.