When 14-year-old Lilia Tideman opened her eyes, she was splayed on the asphalt, the wheel of a Chevy Silverado inches from her skull. Her left femur was cracked in half. Nearby lay her scuffed gray e-bike.
Moments earlier, the Los Gatos High freshman had been rushing to campus, her 88-pound Super73 e-bike reaching nearly 40 mph on a twisting downhill stretch of a one-lane, two-way road. As she rounded a corner, she saw the Chevy coming the other way and squeezed the brakes. Her bike wobbled and she tipped, skidding down the roadway and toward the wheel of the pickup that stopped just in time.
Young people like Lilia have embraced e-bikes as a way to shed their reliance on a mom or dad for a ride to school, a pizza place or a friend’s house. But with this new freedom has come a growing number of e-bike crashes involving young riders that is raising deep concern — and confusion — across the Bay Area…