FARMINGTON — Farmington police spent the summer on bicycles on the rail trail, in the parks and in Unionville Center, and most of the e-bike riders they stopped were kids on machines that were not legal e-bikes at all. Most of those stops ended the same way: a warning, a phone call to a parent and a police report.
Sgt. Sean Bailey, who described himself as the department's traffic unit and community policing supervisor, laid it out Wednesday, Oct. 14, at a public meeting on e-bikes hosted by the town's Bicycle and Trails Advisory Committee, with presentations from the police and Watch for Me CT, a statewide pedestrian and bicycle safety program run by the state Department of Transportation and Connecticut Children's. It was the public meeting the town promised in September. One speaker described how a lot of kids get their bikes: "The parents give it to them. Here you go. Merry Christmas. And they're off."
What police saw this summer
- From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the department's community service officers, uniformed but not sworn, put in 427 hours on the trails and in the parks, out every Saturday, Sunday and holiday. They made 153 bike patrols.
- Sworn officers added 28 targeted patrols, each four hours, including in Unionville Center after complaints about reckless riding.
- Most of the riders were young. Most of their bikes were not legally e-bikes, Bailey said, but electric dirt bikes or cheaper copies.
From a distance, officers look for two things, he said: whether it has working pedals and whether it looks like a bicycle. Up close, it is often faster to ask the rider how fast it goes. The answers, Bailey said: "37, 47, 50." A legal e-bike's motor stops helping at 20 or 28 miles per hour, depending on its class.
A warning, and a call home
With a juvenile, Bailey said, officers "talk with them, give them a warning, call the parent, write a police report." The report means the next officer who stops the same rider can see the earlier warning, and a second stop could bring enforcement, such as a ticket or a referral to juvenile authorities.
It hasn't come to that. "We really didn't have repeat violators," he said. The riders were receptive, he said, and so were the parents.
Police also put e-bike rules on the town's website and newsletter and on a sign trailer, and sent information to parents through the schools. "That's where a big part of this is," Bailey said, "getting the parents understanding what they're purchasing."
Why the fastest ones get away
Police bikes top out at 28 miles per hour. "Somebody's going 50 miles an hour and they see us," Bailey said. "We're not catching them." Chasing a rider at 50 through traffic isn't safe either, he said.
Electric dirt bikes are closed-course machines, like a motocross bike, he said: fine on your own property or a friend's or family member's, but not on a road, a sidewalk or a trail. The popular ones start at about $5,000, he estimated, so "most of the 14 year olds aren't buying that with their allowance money."
What counts as an e-bike
Anna Stern, program coordinator for Watch for Me CT, showed Amazon's best-selling "e-bikes" for the week of Sept. 20. Of the top 20, she said, only two met Connecticut's definition. The ones she walked through went too fast, had too many watts or came with phone apps, a modification the law doesn't allow.
"I don't want to demonize e-bikes," she said. "They're great." The worry is a parent who sees "bike" in the listing and thinks it's fine.
Connecticut has three classes of e-bike, and the classes decide where each may ride. Our September story lays out the rules, including helmets for every rider and no one under 16 on the fastest class. Two definitions that matter here changed Oct. 1 under Public Act 26-24: a bike with a motor of exactly 750 watts now counts as an e-bike, and an electric scooter may weigh up to 110 pounds, up from 100.
Stern also said ordinary bike helmets are tested at about 14 miles per hour, slower than the lowest class of e-bike, and pointed riders to helmets built for e-bikes. She said to charge batteries only with the manufacturer's charger, and never in the doorway you would use to get out in a fire.
More riders are coming
R. Bruce Donald, a committee member who builds bike trails, said the Plainville sections of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail are under construction or in design, and the trail should be finished "probably around 2030," which "is going to bring a lot more bicycle traffic" through Farmington. A state grant, he said, will pay for continuous mile markers starting from mile zero in New Haven, which he said will help emergency responders know where they are.
Asked by a trail user whether a speed limit for the trail had been considered, a police official on the panel, not identified on the recording, said it had, and asked who would enforce it, and what a limit in Farmington alone would mean for riders coming from neighboring towns. Donald suggested a pilot of flashing speed signs on the trail, and the reply from the panel welcomed signs that collect data.
Before a child rides
The police department's advice to families, from its last slide:
- Before a child rides: check the exact model and its legal classification, confirm where it may be used, and whether the child is able to ride it safely.
- To report a concern: share the time, the nearest crossing or trail marker, the direction of travel, a description of what happened and anything that identifies the rider. A phone photo helps, Bailey said.
Questions about whether a device is legal go to the Farmington Police Traffic Unit, 860-675-2400. Anything dangerous happening now is a 911 call. The town's bicycling page links to a summary of the e-bike laws.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. If the gift is going to sit in a unit until December, it will sit there at museum conditions. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's e-bike question since before it had a class number, and still pedals the old-fashioned way, at a speed police have never needed to ask about. Second coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the e-bike night with the slides, the committee that has been at this since last December, the police log that is public record and still needed typing. We publish slowly and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news," which on a bicycle is a perfectly safe speed. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰