Peru council to revisit e-bike committee proposal amid safety, legal concerns

The City of Peru will continue to discuss the formation of a committee to address electric bikes and create regulations.

The council briefly considered establishing an e-bike committee during Monday night’s meeting, ultimately deciding it needed more time to discuss what forming a committee would entail, such as agendas and record-keeping.

“There needs to be something done about e-bikes,” Alderman Mike Sapienza said.

He said the city needs to address two key issues when tackling e-bikes: educating the public on state laws and consequences.

According to Illinois law, a person must be 18 years of age or older to operate a low-speed electric scooter, the scooter can only be used on public roads with speed limits of 30 mph or lowe and fewer than four lanes and every low speed scooter — when in use at nighttime — must be equipped with a lamp on the front that emits a white light visible from a distance of at least 500 feet and with a red reflector on the rear that is visible from all from all directions from 100 to 600 feet.

It also states that only one person is allowed per scooter.

Chief Sarah Raymond said there were two e-bike accidents in 2023 and two this year and the city currently has no ordinances about e-bikes other than following the Illinois Vehicle Code.

However, when asked if she believed an ordinance would assist in lowering accidents, she said she was not sure it would make a difference, as these accidents are generally occurring because drivers aren’t seeing them. It would be no different than someone on a regular bicycle, except they are moving a little faster.

“Only an ordinance making the use of e-bikes and e-scooters illegal by ordinance would make a difference, because they would not be allowed,” she said.

Raymond did agree that educating the public on the laws and restrictions would be beneficial.

Sapienza said he understands that some people may be upset if an ordinance is created because some parents may have recently bought their kid a $700 scooter.

“We have to get out there, educate the kids and educate the public on where they can go, how fast they can go and what roads they’re able to go on,” he said.

Alderman Jason Edgcomb said he agreed with Sapienza, but he has some concerns about creating another committee and wanted to give Corporate Counsel Scott Schweickert time to review, after the issues the city ran into with the formation of the pool committee.

“I start to get a little worried when we talk about forming other committees to make sure that we’re not violating anything if we do put some sort of committee together,” he said.

Edgcomb said he did speak to Raymond about having someone from the police department sit on the committee. He also said Schweickert will research the formation of a committee to ensure there are no violations.

Sapienza made it clear, if a committee were formed, he would like the meeting to be open to the public.

The council will further discuss an e-bike committee at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, July 7, during the Committee of the Whole.