(referring to the City of Maricopa. Which confusingly is split across Maricopa an Pinal Counties).
2026-02-03 ~ 8am Juvenile avoids serious injury after being struck on busy Porter Road:
Maricopa police responded to a vehicle-versus-pedestrian collision involving a juvenile riding an electric bike on Porter Road on Tuesday morning. The incident occurred at approximately 8 a.m. near the intersection of Porter Road and Alan Steven Parkway, according to the Maricopa Police Department. This intersection is near both Sequoia Pathway and Leading Edge Charter schools…
Police said the child was riding the electric bike against the flow of traffic when they attempted to cross the roadway and were struck by a vehicle making a right turn at low speed.
The juvenile sustained minor bumps and scrapes. A parent declined medical transport at the scene, police said…
No citations were issued in this morning’s incident.
This is a reminder to check crash records, and wonder if it was actually an electric bicycle as defined (e.g. a class 1, 2, 3) or rather a motorcycle with an electric motor (like the popular Surron, Talaria, etc), that are effectively illegal. There’s a lot of sloppy language floating around. It’s not completely clear if police will file a crash report as it may be below the reporting threshold, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
It’s still not clear to me if police are reporting (true) electric bike crashes correctly and consistently, or even what is the correct way to report them. If electric bicyclists are reported as drivers (to be consistent with the 2022 updates to FARS) is there even any way to tease out electric bicycle crashes from not-electric bike crashes in ADOT crash data? To give a specific example, a June 29, 2025 fatal hit-run (ADOT incident 4335733) was reported in news outlets (presumably what police said) to be an electric bicycle, but is in crash data as a bicyclist; and there is no way from the data to distinguish it from a (an unpowered) bicycle. When it finally gets into FARS (the lag will be more than a year from now) it should be and probably will be identified as a powered device because fatal incidents are hand-crafted, that is to say analysts pull info from the entire police report, not just the data fields.
With the on-going surge in e-bikes popularity, there is an unsurprisingly and not unexpected uptick in serious injuries and fatalities involving these devices… but data seems to be muddled, and state-level data is turning a blind eye to the distinction. There are existing fields available for this information they currently go un-used in bicycle crashes, several years ago (2018!) I said:
I propose adding a few new “Body Style” definitions: 1) bicycle (well, pedalcycle), 2) motorized bicycle, 3) ebike [or even class 1, class 2, class 3]; this would not require any changes to the Arizona Crash Forms, simply an update to the Crash Form Instruction Manual.
But no one has acted on it.
What the heck is going on in Maricopa?
There’s some pretty intense reporting thanks to inMaricopa… just over the past few days(!):
Stanfield man killed when couple is mowed down by SUV on SR 84
Investigators say impairment may have played role
A driver left the roadway and wiped out couple of people at full speed. It was mentioned it was near the site of yet another critical wreck a couple of months ago.
Cops: Maricopa woman jailed after Range Rover flees traffic stop
She was already wanted on warrants tied to a long history of terrible driving
The sub-title says it all!
Video: Near-miss caught on camera after truck loses control on SR 347
Oh well.
Clarity on definitions, specifically defining the diferences between manually-operated bicycles, and electric-powered bicycles is urgently needed. As inferred from the article, there is a lot of confusion in the public and more importantly with law enforcement regarding the circumstances of collisions involving the various types of vehicles. What is coming is a mass regulatory movement to restrict/limit the operation of ALL two-wheeled devices as an over-reaction. See the recent attempt at legislation in Iowa, where such regulation would have been the death knell for bicycles on roads, including RAGBRAI. In some other jurisdictions, the brainy solution to prohibit bicycles from roads with speed limits above 25 mph has been proposed and/or legislated. Heard tell some have even increased speed limits on 25 mph roads to 26 mph simply to prohibit bikes. This is a problem that is metastisizing faster than the solution. From my many miles riding, I see the overwhelming apparent problem resting with “electric motorcycles” and the utterly irresponsible ways they’re being operated. Too much speed, too little skill, no regulation. So back to the need for definition – the accident data will be used to justify regulation. There has to be clarity on the cause for any regulation to be effective and followed.
Electric scooters are the transportation choice for many young people because of the lower cost compared to an e-bike. . Somehow they need to be included and reported as such in accident reports.