I was invited to attend a meeting 2/23/2026 pulled together by Kerry Wilcoxson (ADOT State Safety Engineer) where he invited folks from Arizona DHS (Dept of Health Services) as well as some other interested parties.
The topic being e-bikes and crash reporting. Which is of course getting all sorts of (mostly negative) attention, for understandable reasons. But the truth is we have very little data to go on…
The hysteria is feeding a media-frenzy which is spilling over into various ideas put forth by legislators, see e.g. this proposal that was introduced into the AZ legislature this session; note this proposal spilled-over, not just to e-bicyclists but to ALL bicyclists, again with virtually no data to back up claims.
Here are a few notes, and some background:
ADOT and traffic crashes
ADOT is charged with the responsibility to track ALL traffic collisions in Arizona; and all police agencies are required to submit all crash reports to them, and in turn ADOT produces a database. As part of that responsibility they publish a standardized form, the Arizona Crash Report (please: it’s not an “accident” report), as well the Arizona Crash Form Instruction Manual (currently in it’s 13th Edition, Revised August 2023). From time-to-time the form and manual are revised; and it’s going through revisions now.
Some of the limitations of the traffic crash data is definitional: it only includes traffic crashes (must involve a “motor vehicle” in transport) that occur effectively on roads open to the public. E-bikes, that is to say electric bicycles as defined in ARS, as well as electric scooters as well as other forms of what are as a lump termed “personal conveyances” are NOT motor vehicles.
There is not really any data collected in the present crash form to differentiate between a bicycle and an e-bike, and other personal conveyances aren’t captured at all (riders of things like e-scooters, or skateboards), are categorized as pedestrians.
Another area for improvement is a training issue with police who complete crash forms when involving bicyclists … Helmet use is frequently (30 to 40%!) listed as “Not applicable”. This is a disallowed response, which was made explicit in the 11th edition of the crash manual.
For reference, here is how FARS and the MMUCC handle this sort of crash data. FARS being the federal crash database for fatality-involving traffic crashes, and MMUCC is a quasi-gov’t standards body that make recommendations on how states should report crash data.
The bleak outlook is that it would be very difficult for police to accurately fill out detailed info regarding e-bikes, scooters, etc — even if it were available on the form. Ideally, I would like to be able to differentiate between “true” (per ARS, either class 1, 2 or 3) e-bikes, and what class they are. And that e-motos, which is to say anything electrically powered but out-of-class be EXCLUDED from the bicycle designation — they are, and should be, motorcycles; and the person type therefore would be “driver” and not “pedalcyclist”.
Regarding motorized bicycles, that is those as defined §28-2516 which are bicycles with a small gas-powered helper motor, I’m not sure how they should be handled. Right now the “correct” way to handle them is as if they are bicycles. These predate, and are accounted for in the ARS definitions of electric bicycles.
Dept of Health Services
I learned that the DHS maintains and reports various databases; two that are relevant are Hospital Discharge, and Trauma Registry.
There is no obvious way to link between these databases, and the traffic collision database.
Next Steps
None, at this time.