Last week, on Coast Village Road in Montecito, an SUV driver crashed straight through the front of Toy Crazy, a store for children. Three days later, a motorist plowed into a Goleta pet shop. This past Sunday night, a few blocks from the toy store, a driver struck and fatally injured a man crossing the road.
One week. Three dangerous incidents. And not one of them was caused by an e-biker.
If you have followed the conversation about street safety lately, you would think the greatest threat to our community is a teenager on an e-bike. It isn’t. In 2023, drivers killed more than 1,100 pedestrians on California streets. The same year, 145 cyclists of every kind, e-bikers included, were killed, nearly all by people driving cars. The greatest danger on our streets today is what it has always been: motorists going too fast where others are catching the bus, shopping, and crossing the street…