Is This How I Die?

When I worked for the Oregon University System in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I spent nine years driving up and down Interstate 5 to attend various meetings. Surrounded by freeway drivers who seemed just plain nuts, I became convinced that I would die on one of those commutes. Somehow, miraculously, I survived. Now I have begun to imagine another violent scenario for my death.

I have walked, almost daily, for my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health for more than forty years, including the last twelve years on Eugene’s Ruth Bascom Riverbank Path System. In retirement, walking beside the Willamette has helped me sort through, and restore some balance to, my life. Several years ago, though, I began to worry that a speeding bicyclist might run me down. That has not happened so far, but now the paths have now become even more dangerous: I’m talking e-bikes. Lately, I have begun to think this is how I die.

But let’s back up. The term “e-bike” covers several kinds of machines. Oregon recognizes three classes, two of which stop providing electric assistance at 20 miles per hour, while Class 3 provides pedal assistance up to 28. Then there are e-motos, powerful electric motorcycles often mistaken for e-bikes. If a vehicle can exceed 20 miles per hour using a throttle, Eugene officials say it is not an e-bike.

E-motos are prohibited on Eugene paths, sidewalks, bike lanes and park trails. When one of these machines races up behind me, though, I don’t have the time to inspect the technology and determine its classification. I just hear the tires and pray the rider respects my space.

The rules sound reassuring on paper. Eugene says e-bike riders should travel no faster than 12 miles per hour on a shared path when other people are present. Twenty miles per hour is allowed only on an open stretch when the rider is alone. Cyclists must yield to walkers, stay to the right, pass on the left and give an audible warning.

E-bikes are not allowed on sidewalks, and riders must be at least sixteen years old. My daily experience suggests that not everyone has read these rules. I also suspect that some who have read them regard them merely as rough guidelines for other people.

The number of young riders makes the situation more troubling. An August 2026 NBC News report found that emergency-room visits involving e-bike and e-scooter injuries among children and teenagers had increased by more than 600 percent in three years. Head and neck injuries were among the most common. The report featured a twelve-year-old Wisconsin boy who looked back to check on a friend, then crashed into a parked car. He shattered his cheekbone and needed three operations to rebuild his face.

A pediatric emergency physician in Wisconsin said accidents he once saw only occasionally have now become a daily occurrence. These involve children operating machines capable of traffic speeds before they have developed driving experience or adult judgment.

The local figures are equally sobering. As the Register-Guard reported last month, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center treated 13 people for e-bike injuries in 2023 and 48 in 2025, an increase of roughly 250 percent. More than half of the injured riders in both years reportedly were not wearing helmets. Doctors are treating broken ribs, fractures, severe head injuries and facial trauma once associated mainly with motorcycles.

Oregon Health Authority figures provide another warning about the risks. Hospital and emergency-department visits involving e-bikes/e-scooters rose statewide from 211 in 2021 to 418 in 2024, with 509 reported in only the first nine months of 2025.

Now, I realize that there are some e-bike riders who are careful and courteous, and I understand the benefits. E-bikes can replace car trips and make cycling possible for older adults, commuters and people who cannot ride a conventional bicycle. None of that excuses reckless riding, however. A machine can be environmentally friendly and still be frightening when it whizzes past your left elbow without warning. The combination of weight, speed, silence and careless operation creates a genuine danger, particularly on paths shared with children, dogs, runners and older walkers like me.

I am not calling for every lawful e-bike to be banned, but Eugene needs more than a website, signs, educational campaigns and polite reminders. The city needs visible enforcement, including speed monitoring, citations for reckless riding and meaningful consequences for people who bring illegal e-motos onto public paths.

Further, retailers should be accountable when they sell electric motorcycles as e-bikes, and parents should be responsible when they give powerful machines to children who cannot legally operate them. Rules that are never enforced are merely suggestions, and these suggestions offer little protection to people walking beside the river. Eugene really should not wait for me to be killed before deciding that enforcement matters. After surviving all those years on I-5, I would prefer not to be finished off during a peaceful afternoon walk by a reckless teen on his E-moto.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

How could I forget to mention
The bicycle is a good invention
Sitting there in a silent movie
Beside the only girl who really ever knew me
Happy days, but sad I’m facin’
Heaven knows I’m on the case, oh
How could I forget to mention the bicycle?

(“Bicycle Song” — Red Hot Chili Peppers)

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