Florida’s New E-Bike Law: Why Crash Data Matters After Bicycle Deaths Rose Nearly 50%

Florida’s e-bike debate is no longer theoretical. E-bikes are now common on sidewalks, beach roads, neighborhood streets, bike lanes, and shared-use trails across the state. Parents are asking whether children should be riding them. Local governments are asking how fast is too fast.  Innocent folks who use our sidewalks everyday are asking what’s being done to protect them from pedestrian accidents.  Law enforcement agencies are asking what rules they are supposed to enforce.

Now Florida lawmakers have moved toward a statewide response.

As of publication, CS/SB 382 has passed the Florida Legislature and is awaiting action by Governor Ron DeSantis. The Florida Senate’s official bill page lists the measure as “ordered enrolled,” after passing the Senate 37–0 and the House 112–0. 

The bill matters for two reasons.

First, it would create new operating rules for e-bikes in pedestrian-heavy areas. Second, and more importantly from a public safety standpoint, it would begin closing one of Florida’s biggest e-bike safety gaps: the lack of clean statewide crash data.

That data gap is exactly what Santini Research examined in its Florida Bicycle & E-Bike Safety Report, which found that Florida bicycle deaths rose nearly 50% after COVID while injuries also increased sharply. 

Beyond Florida recently covered Santini Research’s findings on rising Florida bicycle fatalities as part of a broader discussion about SB 382 and the future of e-bike regulation in Florida.

Watch: Beyond Florida discusses Florida’s evolving e-bike rules and Santini Personal Injury & Car Accident Law’s research division, Santini Research’s crash-data analysis

Florida’s e-bike bill is really about two things: rules and data

SB 382 is often discussed as an “e-bike law,” but the bill is broader than one simple rule change.

The Florida Senate’s bill summary says the bill would require e-bike riders on certain shared pathways to yield to pedestrians and give an audible signal before passing. It would also prohibit operating an e-bike faster than 10 mph on a sidewalk or pedestrian-designated area when a pedestrian is within 50 feet. Violations would be treated as noncriminal traffic infractions and punished as nonmoving violations. 

The bill would also create a Micromobility Device Safety Task Force within the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That task force would be responsible for studying Florida’s micromobility regulatory framework and submitting recommendations to the Governor and Legislature by October 1, 2026. 

But the most important long-term part of the bill may be the crash reporting requirement.

Under the enrolled bill text, beginning 30 days after the act becomes law, the Florida Highway Patrol, police departments, and sheriff’s offices would have to maintain a list of all traffic crashes they investigate involving a micromobility device. That list must include the date and time of the crash, the class of e-bike involved if applicable, the operator’s age, and whether the operator had a valid Florida learner’s license or driver’s license if known. 

Local agencies would then submit crash data to FLHSMV, and FLHSMV would submit a statewide summary report to the Governor and Legislature by October 31, 2026. The report must separate crash data by device type and county. 

That is a major shift. Until now, Florida has not had a clean statewide e-bike crash dataset.

Why the crash data gap matters

Florida law generally treats electric bicycles like bicycles. Current Florida law says an electric bicycle, or the operator of an electric bicycle, has the rights and duties of a bicycle or bicycle operator, and that e-bike operators are not subject to laws involving financial responsibility, driver or motor vehicle licenses, vehicle registration, title certificates, off-highway motorcycles, or off-highway vehicles. 

That legal structure may make sense for transportation access. But it creates a serious data problem.

Santini Research’s report found that Florida crash data categorizes bicyclists under broad bicycle-related categories that capture traditional bicycles and likely some statutory electric bicycles, without consistently separating e-bikes from regular bicycles. The report also notes that scooters and similar devices are excluded from the bicycle bucket and fall into separate non-motorist classifications. 

That means Florida’s current bicycle crash numbers cannot answer the most important questions in the e-bike debate:

• Are e-bikes causing more crashes, or are they simply increasing total riding exposure?
• Are children being injured at a disproportionate rate?
• Are Class 2 throttle e-bikes creating different risks than pedal-assist e-bikes?
• Are crashes happening on roads, sidewalks, trails, intersections, or beach corridors?
• Are certain counties facing a much larger e-bike safety problem than others?

Florida has been trying to regulate a fast-growing transportation category without fully knowing where, how, and to whom the injuries are happening.

Santini Research found a sharp post-COVID increase in Florida bicycle deaths and injuries

The Santini Research report analyzed Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles bicycle injury and fatality data, comparing a 2017–2019 pre-COVID baseline with a 2022–2025 post-COVID core period. The report excluded 2020 and 2021 to avoid pandemic-related travel disruption and used county population benchmarks from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

The findings were significant.

Compared to the 2017–2019 baseline, average annual Florida bicycle injuries increased from 6,226.7 to 8,233.3 in the 2022–2025 period, a 32.2% increase. Average annual fatalities rose from 147.7 to 216.5, a 46.6% increase. 

The severity trend matters. Injuries increased, but fatalities increased faster. That suggests Florida is not just seeing more bicycle crashes. It may be seeing more dangerous bicycle crashes. 

Because Florida’s crash data does not yet reliably isolate e-bikes from traditional bicycles, the report does not claim that e-bikes caused every part of the increase. But the timing, geography, and severity patterns strongly support further investigation into e-bikes as a major contributor to Florida’s post-COVID bicycle casualty surge. 

The pattern is not evenly spread across Florida

One of the most important findings in the Santini Research report is that Florida’s bicycle casualty increase is not randomly distributed.

The highest post-COVID bicycle injury rates were concentrated in coastal, leisure-heavy counties. Monroe and Pinellas led the state, followed by counties including Martin, Collier, Sarasota, Broward, Brevard, Bay, Volusia, and Palm Beach. 

That matters because Florida’s largest counties did not automatically have the highest per-capita injury rates. In other words, this is not simply a story about population size.

It is more likely a story about exposure: where people are riding, how often they are riding, what kinds of devices they are using, and how e-bikes interact with trails, beach roads, sidewalks, tourists, older riders, and local traffic patterns.

Pinellas County is one of the clearest examples. The report found that Pinellas averaged 680.8 bicycle injuries annually in the post-COVID window, with a resident-adjusted injury rate of 70.6 per 100,000 people. The report also noted that average annual fatalities in Pinellas rose from 7.7 to 13.25. 

Monroe County also stood out, posting the report’s highest post-COVID injury rate and the highest fatality rate among counties meeting the report’s meaningful-volume screen. The report notes that resident-based denominators can overstate the burden in tourism-heavy regions, but Monroe’s geography, visitor exposure, and bicycle infrastructure still make it a critical county to watch. 

Why SB 382 could change the debate

Today, Florida’s e-bike debate often turns into a policy argument before the data is clear.

Some people want strict licensing, registration, insurance, helmet requirements, or age limits. Others argue that e-bikes should remain treated like bicycles and that overregulation will discourage safe, low-cost transportation.

SB 382 does not fully resolve that debate. Instead, it may create the factual foundation for the next one.

By requiring law enforcement agencies to track micromobility crashes by device type, county, operator age, e-bike class, crash date, crash time, and license status, Florida should finally begin building a more useful picture of what is actually happening. 

That could help answer questions such as:

• Are most e-bike crashes involving children, adults, or older riders?
• Are certain counties seeing far more serious e-bike incidents than others?
• Are Class 2 throttle e-bikes or Class 3 faster pedal-assist e-bikes involved in different crash patterns?
• Are crashes concentrated on sidewalks, shared-use paths, roadways, intersections, or tourist corridors?
• Is Florida dealing mostly with legal e-bikes, modified e-bikes, or devices that are closer to electric motorcycles?

Those answers should matter before lawmakers impose broad statewide rules.

What parents should know now

For parents, the legal debate is only part of the issue.

Even before Florida has a complete e-bike crash dataset, the safety concerns are obvious. E-bikes can put young riders into traffic environments at speeds they may not be ready to handle. They can also create speed differences on sidewalks and shared paths where pedestrians, children, older adults, tourists, and cyclists are all using the same space.

Parents should pay attention to four issues:

• Speed. Even a lawful e-bike may be too fast for a child in a crowded area.
• Throttle control. A throttle-style e-bike can accelerate without the rider pedaling, which may create different risks than a traditional bicycle or pedal-assist bike.
• Helmet use. A helmet cannot prevent every injury, but head injuries are among the most serious outcomes in bicycle and micromobility crashes.
• Where the child is riding. A quiet neighborhood street, a beach path, a sidewalk, and a busy arterial road are completely different risk environments.

SB 382’s proposed crash reporting requirement should eventually help Florida understand whether certain age groups, locations, device classes, or riding environments are producing the most serious injuries.

What riders should know about the proposed Florida rules

If SB 382 becomes law, riders should pay particular attention to pedestrian-heavy areas.

The bill would restrict e-bike speed on sidewalks and pedestrian-designated areas when pedestrians are nearby, and it would require riders on certain shared pathways to yield and give an audible signal before passing pedestrians. 

That means a rider may be legally fine in one setting but violating the law in another. A speed that feels normal in a bike lane may be too fast on a sidewalk near pedestrians.

Riders should also understand that local governments may continue to play a role. Existing Florida law allows local governments to adopt ordinances governing e-bike operation on streets, highways, sidewalks, and sidewalk areas under local jurisdiction, and certain public agencies may restrict or regulate e-bikes on paths, trails, beaches, and dunes. 

The practical rule is simple: check local rules, slow down near pedestrians, and assume that trail and sidewalk enforcement may become more visible if SB 382 becomes law.

What local governments should watch

For cities and counties, the new reporting framework could become extremely valuable.

The Santini Research report found that Florida’s post-COVID bicycle injury accident burden is concentrated in a distinct group of coastal counties, not evenly distributed across the state. 

That means a one-size-fits-all statewide discussion may miss the point. The counties with the highest exposure may need different interventions than inland counties with lower bicycle and e-bike traffic.

Local governments should be watching for:

• high-crash trail crossings;
• sidewalk corridors with heavy pedestrian traffic;
• beach and tourism zones;
• school routes and youth riding patterns;
• modified or out-of-class electric devices;
• and intersections where e-bike riders mix with cars, trucks, pedestrians, and traditional cyclists.

Once Florida begins separating crash data by device type and county, local governments should be able to make more targeted decisions about signage, enforcement, infrastructure, public education, and local ordinances.

The bottom line

Florida’s e-bike debate is moving quickly because the devices are moving quickly.

SB 382 would not answer every question. It would not eliminate local disputes over sidewalks, trails, speed, helmets, minors, registration, or insurance. It also would not immediately prove exactly how much of Florida’s post-COVID bicycle casualty surge is attributable to e-bikes.

But it would do something important: it would start giving Florida better data.

That matters because Santini Research found that Florida bicycle fatalities rose nearly 50% and bicycle injuries rose over 30% when comparing the 2017–2019 pre-COVID baseline to the 2022–2025 post-COVID period. 

Until Florida has clean e-bike-specific crash data, lawmakers, parents, riders, law enforcement, and local governments are all working with an incomplete picture.

The first step toward better e-bike policy is better e-bike data.

FAQs

What is Florida’s new e-bike law?

Florida’s pending e-bike bill, CS/SB 382, would create new rules for e-bike use in pedestrian-heavy areas, create a Micromobility Device Safety Task Force, and require law enforcement agencies to collect and report micromobility crash data to FLHSMV. The bill has passed the Legislature and, as of publication, awaits action by the Governor. 

Is Florida’s e-bike law already in effect?

As of the date of this article in late May 2026, the Florida Senate lists CS/SB 382 as “ordered enrolled,” and the Senate summary states that if approved by the Governor or allowed to become law without signature, the provisions take effect upon becoming law unless otherwise provided. 

What would SB 382 require e-bike riders to do near pedestrians?

The bill would require e-bike riders on certain shared pathways to yield to pedestrians and give an audible signal before passing. It would also prohibit riding an e-bike faster than 10 mph on sidewalks or pedestrian-designated areas when a pedestrian is within 50 feet. 

Does Florida currently separate e-bike crashes from bicycle crashes?

Not reliably statewide. Santini Research found that Florida’s current bicycle crash accident data captures traditional bicycles and likely some statutory electric bicycles together, without consistently separating e-bikes from traditional bicycles. 

Are scooters counted as bicycles in Florida crash data?

Santini Research’s report states that scooters and similar devices are excluded from the bicycle definition in FLHSMV crash materials and fall into separate non-motorist classifications. 

How much have bicycle deaths increased in Florida?

Santini Research found that average annual Florida bicycle fatalities increased from 147.7 during the 2017–2019 baseline to 216.5 during the 2022–2025 post-COVID period, a 46.6% increase. 

Which Florida counties had the highest post-COVID bicycle injury rates?

Santini Research found that Monroe and Pinellas had the highest post-COVID bicycle injury rates per capita, followed by Martin, Collier, Sarasota, Broward, Brevard, Bay, Volusia, and Palm Beach. 

Does the data prove e-bikes caused the increase in bicycle deaths?

No. The current data does not cleanly isolate e-bikes from traditional bicycles. However, Santini Research found that the timing, geography, and severity trends strongly align with the rapid expansion of e-bikes in Florida, making e-bikes a leading issue for further investigation.

About The Author

Frank Santini

Frank Santini, Esq., is a highly accomplished personal injury attorney and the founder of Santini Personal Injury & Car Accident Law, specializing in personal injury law. A summa cum laude graduate of Stetson University College of Law, Frank is licensed in Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and has earned recognition as a Rising Star" by Super Lawyers and high ratings from Martindale-Hubbell. Education: Graduated cum laude from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA Graduated summa cum laude from Stetson University College of Law Professional Associations: Member of The Florida Bar, the New Jersey Bar, and the Pennsylvania Bar. Experience: Founder of Santini Personal Injury & Car Accident Law, representing personal injury clients with dedication and expertise.

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