Kids ride e-scooters near Lake Arlington in Arlington Heights this week. Neighbors have complained to the village board and asked officials to impose restrictions. | John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
By Christopher Placek | Daily Herald
Controversy and concern over the use of electric bicycles and scooters continues its journey from town to town throughout the suburbs this summer as more municipalities consider putting the brakes on kids from operating the mini vehicles.
After neighboring Elk Grove Village and Schaumburg approved sets of new rules last month, residents in Arlington Heights complained to village leaders this week about children riding up and down darkened streets, paths around Lake Arlington and even the downtown Arlington Alfresco pedestrian area.
“It’s just getting out of control,” said Mindy Bowes, who lives a block north of the 50-acre man-made Lake Arlington. “These kids don’t wear helmets. They don’t stop at stop signs. They don’t stop at the lights either. It’s just getting very dangerous.”
Bowes said her street, Crabtree Drive, and the two-mile walking path that encircles the lake have become popular locales for kids to race motorized bikes and scooters. But she also said dirt bikes and ATVs are becoming commonplace behind her backyard, below the ComEd power lines and at the adjacent soccer fields of Wildwood Park.
“We’re just asking for a little bit of help with these kids,” Bowes told village board members at a meeting Monday night. “I don’t know what else to do. So I’m asking for you to come up with some of the same ideas that are going on in some of these other villages.”
Kids ride e-scooters near Lake Arlington in Arlington Heights this week. Neighbors have complained to the village board and asked officials to impose restrictions. | John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
Under rules that went into effect Tuesday in Elk Grove, anyone who doesn’t have a valid driver’s license — by definition, anyone under 16 — is barred from operating an e-bike, e-scooter or e-skateboard on public streets.
Schaumburg approved a similar measure last month, setting the minimum rider age at 16, requiring riders to wear helmets and use vehicle lights at night, and prohibiting their operation on sidewalks.
In Addison, riders of e-scooters must be at least 18, while anyone aboard a Class 3 e-bike — the fastest type of bike that can go 28 mph — must be 16.
Read more here.
It’s not just the kids. Adults ride those things also, the don’t obey the laws or rules of the road either. The state should mandate them as a motor vehicle and require plates and cities that have them should require yearly inspection stickers for them. They’re death traps.