Las Vegas residents and officials grapple with a surge in electric bike and scooter fatalities

By Tyler Schneider

Las Vegas Weekly

I was walking down a sidewalk in Chinatown with a friend last month when we were blindsided by a speeding electric scooter. We were turning right at an intersection when a teenage rider ran into her, knocking her onto the pavement and launching himself onto the side of the roadway.

My friend suffered extensive bruising that still hasn’t fully healed, while the rider narrowly avoided being struck by a car. A few quick web searches suggested the incident was part of a greater local trend.

As of June 8, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has responded to 10 fatal accidents involving e-bicycles or e-scooters so far this year—up from just four through this point in 2024 and matching or surpassing the 2022 and 2023 totals. Many non-fatal cases also go unreported, according to a 2022 report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The dangers are clear. A 2024 study from UC-San Francisco found that, among the more than 86,000 national reports involving these vehicles from 2017 to 2022, the number of respective e-bike and e-scooter injuries increased annually by about 100 percent and 45 percent, respectively.

Policymakers in Clark County and Henderson recently took steps to address the issue by approving new ordinances regulating e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards, off-road motorcycles and similar vehicles.

Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones led the push to establish new policies for the Strip and the county’s parks and unincorporated areas after an announcement about park expansion plans led some residents to reach out about excessive e-bike speeding at Mountain’s Edge Regional Park. The changes passed unanimously on May 6 and took effect May 21.

“It’s something that’s very prevalent in Southern Nevada and across the county, and we really needed to fix this issue before we moved on to expansion,” Jones says.

The county now categorizes electric vehicles based on class, limits operators to 15 miles per hour and generally prohibits any e-bikes in parks unless they feature pedal-assist technology—meaning they still require some human effort to operate. All e-bikes and e-scooters are banned on the Strip and in other unincorporated county lands unless explicitly specified via signage.

In county parks, all minors must wear a helmet, while riders of all ages need to equip a bell or horn, front lighting, rear reflectors and adequate brake systems. First-time violators face a $150 fine, with subsequent offenses ranging from $300 to $600. Parents and guardians are also held liable for underage speeders.

Jones also wanted to extend the ordinance to county roadways but says they lacked authority due to existing state law.

“There are provisions in statute that limit how far local jurisdictions can go. We talked to legislators, but it was kind of too late to try and put something like that together last minute,” Jones says, referring to Nevada’s legislative session that ended June 3.

The Henderson ordinance, which passed in December, prohibits most motorized bicycles, scooters, skateboards, motorcycles, dirt bikes and go-karts in its parks and non-designated trails. Electric motorcycles are also banned on public roadways.

Henderson’s park ban also doesn’t include e-bikes with pedals but differs from Clark County in that it applies to any personal electric vehicle with a throttle, Henderson Assistant Director of Community Development and Services Ian Massy tells the Weekly.

“We’ve had serious injuries. We’ve seen them on the news around the entire Valley. We need parents to be involved and understand that these are motorized vehicles that have the same risk of injury and death as a car,” Massy says.

Henderson Police Sgt. Richard Paul would also like to be able to enforce on public roads. The city saw two e-scooter fatalities in those spaces last year, while Paul says the HPD has responded to 23 e-bike and e-scooter collisions so far in 2025.

“It’s becoming more and more prevalent as technology is becoming cheaper. More young adults and unlicensed drivers are operating these things just as if you were in a car, which creates an unsafe environment,” Paul says.

Without state intervention, Paul is limited in his ability to help curb the issue. If he does make a stop, he says he takes the opportunity to educate the rider and contact a parent if they’re underage, adding that the HPD also works with local middle schools to promote safety.

Rider education remains paramount. The LVMPD hosted its own safety event for young riders last month, while Boulder City started a program in April. Joe Cantalicio—owner of the Las Vegas-based electric vehicle outlet WheelZen Rides—launched a recurring youth safety seminar on May 3.

Cantalicio personally knew 22-year-old Christopher Soto, who was riding an e-scooter with his 14-year-old brother, Carlos, on March 24 when he was struck and killed by a car near Warm Springs Road and Torrey Pines Drive. Soto died at the hospital, while his sibling was critically injured.

“To be honest, I had a talk with my wife about how I almost feel like I should just close it down. I don’t want blood on my hands. That’s not why I opened this shop,” Cantalicio says.

Instead, he decided to help mitigate the risks through education, with the next safety seminar coming sometime in July. Although he still touts small electric vehicles as environmentally friendly and financially affordable, he also says they’ve grown increasingly powerful in recent years—with some “high-performance machines” capable of reaching up to 80 miles per hour.

“They need to start regulating them according to power or motor size and move toward an open-type registration system,” Cantalicio says.

Until then, local officials are using the authority they do have to keep riders safe.

“This is not the solution. This is a step towards bringing awareness and education,” Massy says.