Youth EV Dirt Bike Safety Doesn't Exist; Parents Are To Blame

While the future of motorcycling is safe thanks to youth-focused EV dirt bikes, the parents buying these machines aren't teaching their children to be safe riders. Parents need to step up before lawmakers make them illegal.

Photo by: Zero Motorcycles

By: Jonathon Klein

May 5, at 7:02am ET

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Whereas many of my colleagues will be derisive about EV dirt bikes and how they're "Not real motorcycles," while simultaneously asking, "Why aren't the youths into motorcycles anymore?" I see the two as answering each other. Why, because kids are into motorcycles, they're just into those EV dirt bikes from Sur-Ron, Talaria, Zero, Stark, and Segway.

And parents are buying them up like hotcakes, to the point where my anecdotal evidence, pulled from my tiny hamlet of a town, is that 95% of kids riding today are riding those EVs. They aren't even riding regular pedal bikes or even assisted e-bikes. They're just going straight to the dirt bikes, with even my own daughter joining in with that group.

There's also real evidence behind that theory, too, as Zero has gone all-in on its youth-oriented EV dirt bikes, Stark is profitable in record time, Talaria, Sur-Ron, and their competitors can't make enough to satisfy demand, and there are a host of copy-cats and others attempting to build their own platforms as fast as possible. The youths are going to be OK when it comes to liking, wanting, and likely buying motorcycles.

But unlike my daughter, who's spent hours upon hours riding in the backyard with my voice in her helmet thanks to her Cardo, and who partakes in going full ATGATT thanks to her dad consistently hurting himself and not wanting her to suffer the same maladies, as well as teaching her good riding practices when around others, I don't see the same level of common sense or safety training being applied. In fact, whenever I open up my laptop or phone, I routinely find that kids are either getting seriously hurt, seriously hurting others, ending up in legal issues with the law, causing some sort of havoc in their towns, or encouraging others to engage in the same sort of unsafe behavior that'll lead to those issues above.

Frankly, parents need to start showing up and teaching their kids how not to be idiots, as this is how we lose things being legal and ruin it for everyone else. But far more importantly, this lackadaisical safety discipline is how kids die or are injured for life. And I don't want to see more headlines like those, nor do I want a parent to go through that.

2019 Sur-Ron X

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This rant is one that's been a long time coming, as RideApart's routinely covered local headlines of kids getting hurt, kids hurting others, or local jurisdictions applying new safety laws or making the bikes illegal to use due to poor decision-making by the youths. But, folks, that's burying who's actually responsible in these situations.

It's the parents who are at fault. It's your fault.

First and foremost, children cannot be trusted to make great decisions when they haven't been taught these things, as a person's brain isn't fully formed until it's nearly 27 years old. So anything below it is all just chemical insanity and trying to figure out what's right in the world. In other words, kids are stupid and will absolutely make poor decisions. It's our job, however, to teach them what the right decisions are, and based on every headline I see, we aren't.

2026 Stark Varg SM

Photo by: Stark Future

The latest one, the headline that caused this rant to finally materialize, was "Teen on electric motorcycle hits 81-year-old, leaves him fighting for his life, authorities say," as reported by the Los Angeles Times, and details how a 14-year-old struck an elderly man, fled the scene, and was later picked up by the cops, but not before seriously injuring the victim. And it's headlines like these that'll ensure neither the law-abiding youths or adults have access to these machines, as these are the ones that set laws into motion. These are the ones that special interest groups seize upon and use to disenfranchise folks with onerous regulations. These are the headlines that caused trikes to be outlawed.

And it's not just a one-off. This headline appears more and more frequently with each passing day, as parents just unleash their children out into the world and don't teach them the rules of the road, how to not be dickheads, or what is and isn't legal in their area. They just toss them the keys and...that's it.

To that end, I've barely see a proper motorcycle helmet worn by kids riding these EV dirt bikes, let alone any other protective gear. Parents, most of these motorcycles can hit 70mph. That's face-ripping speeds. Literally. If your kid crashes, which they're very likely to do, you're not only looking at massive hospital bills to reconstruct their faces and bones, but also the trauma that comes from that and being permanently disfigured.

Is that what you want for them?

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Photo by: RideApart.com

Importantly, a mountain bike helmet is absolutely not freakin' sufficient. There's no chin protection, no facial protection, and a bicycle helmet is not up to the standards of keeping the occupant safe in a motorcycle crash. I don't know why I have to tell you that, but given how many kids I've seen, as well as some of the youth influencers I've seen online rocking just MTB helmets, I apparently do. Get them a proper dirt bike helmet, FFS.

I'm honestly annoyed that I even have to write this, because I'm a huge proponent of these machines. They're awesome and get more kids off their tablets and screens and back out in the outdoors. But the amount of unsafe behavior I have seen firsthand, as well as everything we've covered and continue to cover, it's time for a slap upside the head for parents.

Do your jobs, keep your kids safe, and don't screw this up for everyone else.