Orange County’s first e-bike buyback event draws huge crowd, hundreds of vehicles

Jesse Hayes, 20, spent three months on life support after being struck by a car while riding his e-bike. Nearly two years later, he said he still struggles to play the guitar and walks with a knee brace to prevent hyperextension.

On Sunday morning, Hayes was the first among hundreds of people to turn in their electric vehicles at a buyback event at Angel Stadium. Accompanied by his family, Hayes said he wants to share his story so that other young people can be aware of the dangers of e-bike riding.

“I want people to know these crashes happen a lot more than most people think, and how horrible they are,” Hayes said.

The program, hosted by the Orange County District Attorney’s office, allowed participants to surrender e-bikes, e-motorcycles, e-scooters and pocket bikes for up to $1,000 in gift cards from Target, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods. The first 75 people to exchange vehicles received a pair of tickets to an Angels game.

The county had $110,000 worth of gift cards available on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said. Many of the vehicles surrendered on Sunday were Class 1 and Class 2 bikes that have a maximum motor-assisted speed of 20 miles per hour, and could be cashed in for gift cards of between $300 to $400.

Some of families began lining up at the crack of dawn. Amy Kaur and her two teenage sons drove from Fontana at 6 a.m. and were among the first to participate in the exchange four hours later.

Arsh and Harvin Singh, who are 15 and 13, said they wanted to give up their e-motos because of how frequently they’ve been hurt.

“We’ve been in multiple crashes; we’ve fallen many times,” Arsh said.

“Tell them about my fingers,” their friend and neighbor, Jesse Guerrero, interjected.

Guerrero, 11, said he sustained serious injuries when he crashed his modified e-bike this summer, including shredded kneecaps and severed fingertips that required a dozen stitches. He said he had been cruising at 40 miles per hour on a local street.

Though Guerrero said he’ll dearly miss the bike, he recognizes the danger it poses.

“I couldn’t use that hand,” he recalled.

The county’s first e-bike buyback comes amid a spike in related injuries, fatalities and prosecutions across the state that experts have described as an epidemic.

The number of e-bike crashes in California surged from 48 in 2020 to 1,366 in 2025, according to California Highway Patrol data. Reported crashes in Orange County rose from 34 to 347 in that time frame, including three fatalities. Kolby Aipa, a 20-year-old Huntington Beach surfer, died last year after colliding with a truck while riding his e-bike.

“It’s a big crisis in our county,” said Dr. Laura Goodman, trauma medical director and pediatric surgeon at Rady Children’s Hospital of Orange County. “We usually see at least two victims of e-bike crashes coming into our hospital every day.”

Since last year, Goodman said, e-bikes have become the leading cause of trauma activations at her hospital, which happens when a patient’s condition is severe enough to require the service of a larger team. Head, neck and facial injuries, as well as bone fractures, are among the most common injuries associated with e-bikes, she said.

Children aged 11 to 14 account for nearly two-thirds of e-motorcycle crashes even though they’re legally prohibited from riding the vehicle, according to the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Record System (SWITRS).

“These vehicles are not child’s play, and the consequences are incredibly dangerous and increasingly deadly,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a press release about the buyback. “This event is sparking conversations about E-Bike and E-Moto safety like never before, and those conversations will hopefully lead to increased rider responsibility, education, and accountability.”

Spitzer has ramped up enforcement on reckless riding, prosecuting parents whose children were involved in serious or fatal e-bike crashes and creating a new unit to investigate potential criminal charges. His office has filed child endangerment charges against four parents this year, including a mother whose 14-year-old son was accused of fatally striking an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran. She could be facing up to seven years and eight months in state prison if convicted.

Some parents who showed up Sunday said the event was an important way to increase public knowledge about e-bike use. Krista Carrillo, who drove from Hawthorne at 7.30 a.m., surrendered an e-bike she bought for her 16-year-old daughter. She said she hadn’t been aware of the many safety concerns associated with the vehicle when she made the purchase, particularly for teens and young adults.

“Once we got it, I didn’t realize what we were in for,” Carrillo said.