Cars And Trucks Still Kill E-Bike Riders The Most, Says The Actual Data

For all the hand-wringing you'll see in news pieces about the scourge of youths on e-bikes taking over [insert formerly peaceful town name here], there are the personal anecdotes, and then there's the data.

While it's certainly true that there are jackasses on e-bikes, and that there are probably more of them now than there ever have been before, that only correlates with the quantifiable fact that e-bikes have become more popular. And as I'm sure you're aware, there's plenty of jackassery to go around on (and in) any and every type of vehicle, as well as on foot.

E-bikes don't inherently attract more jackasses; but it stands to reason that if more people are doing any one thing, there will, by the simple fact of human nature, be more jackassing about as well. 

Lucky for us, we have some data to discuss that breaks things down in factual terms. In April 2026, the US Consumer Products Safety Commission released its most recent Micromobility Products-Related Deaths, Injuries, and Hazard Patterns report. This one spans eight years, from 2017 through 2024. Due to the nature of the data reported, and how long things like death certificates can sometimes take to get properly filed, reported, and/or processed, it's possible that these statistics may change in the coming years.

However, as always, we can only operate with the data we currently have available, so here's what we know at the time of writing.

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By now, you've probably seen at least one news report about a person on an e-bike killing a pedestrian. That is horrible, full stop.

I'm sure that all of us fervently wish that the number of such instances was zero. However, at the same time, this data shows that instances of fatalities involving e-bikes and pedestrians is nowhere near the top of the list if we're talking about e-bike-related fatalities.

What is? I'm so glad you asked. Since RideApart has been covering motorcycles and motorcycle culture longer than we've been covering anything else, what I'm about to relate to you may seem a bit like deja vu all over again, particularly if you're a longtime reader. 

Why do I say that? Because according to eight years of US CPSC collected data via the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), which collects reports from hospitals and emergency rooms across the US, the number one cause of e-bike related fatalities, by a very long shot, is motor vehicles.

How big a gap are we talking about? Just under 55% of the total number of reported e-bike fatalities were caused by motor vehicles. Now, to be fair, the report does also state that an unspecified number of these fatal crashes may have involved standing or parked motor vehicles and a moving e-bike.

It would certainly be helpful if this data was a little more granular in breaking down numbers of crashes that involve moving motor vehicles colliding with e-bikes, versus e-bikes colliding with parked or standing vehicles. I suspect (but cannot prove) that moving motor vehicles are more likely to have been the cause of e-bike fatalities most of the time.

But here, see for yourself. 

E-Bike Fatality Statistics, 2017 through 2024 via the US CPSC

Photo by: US CPSC

Obviously, fatalities are only one part of the story; injuries are another, and perhaps we'll discuss what this report has to say about e-bike injuries another time. But I think it's worth noting that no other recorded hazard here even comes close to the numbers of deaths that motor vehicle accidents involving e-bikes have. 

Not pedestrians, not fires (battery-related or otherwise), and not falls or control issues with the e-bike. It's conflicts with motor vehicles, as it often is between motorcycles and other motor vehicles on the road. 

Keep that in mind the next time you see pearl-clutching and hand-wringing about e-bikes, and how we need to control them. Should we just shrug our shoulders and not care that motor vehicles can be deadly? Or is that just the cost of other vehicles (and pedestrians) sharing the road with them, and something we've collectively deemed is acceptable, so much so that we only feel the need to police other forms of transportation in outsize ways?

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