As more e-bike and moped accidents occur throughout Orange County, the focus has been on the safety of the students. Safe driving training should be mandatory for Orange County students before they are authorized to drive one of these vehicles to school; and the training needs to be mandatory for the student’s parents as well. 

Parental accountability is essential… not only to ensure these students totally understand the seriousness of the consequences of their irresponsible, dangerous driving, but their parents need to be held accountable and responsible if a pedestrian or cyclist is injured or killed due to the careless irresponsible driving of their child. 

Orange County has the ability to develop an ordinance which would mandate not only the safety training, but vehicle registration.  Once registered, the vehicle would receive a plate that would be used by authorities to identify the driver and their parents or guardians in case of an accident. 

As bike trails and sidewalks throughout Orange County become increasingly more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists due to the irresponsible driving of moped and e-bike drivers, we need to ensure the student’s parents are held financially responsible for the injuries incurred by pedestrians or cyclists due to their child’s irresponsible driving behavior.