This story has been updated from a previous version.
Twenty-eight people have died riding e-bikes in the Tampa Bay area over the last five years. Pinellas County accounts for 18 of those deaths. The increased use of e-bikes – and the subsequent rise in fatalities – has prompted lawmakers to advance new regulations.
Senate Bill 382 and House Bill 243 recently passed all committees during the Legislative Session and are pending Senate approval.
If passed, the bill(s) would require e-bikes to slow to 10 miles per hour when within 50 feet of a pedestrian. It would also create a new agency, the Electric Bicycle Safety Task Force, which would work in conjunction with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
The proposed bill does not overhaul existing e-bike classifications or access. Instead, it addresses immediate safety concerns and lays the groundwork for future regulations, pending recommendations from the newly formed task force.
The current draft excludes e-scooters from the bill, though they were included earlier in the process. Michelle Lynch advocates for reintroducing e-scooters. Her son Connor Lynch – a University of South Florida Tampa sophomore – was killed near campus in 2024, while riding one.
“The driver who hit Connor was not cited with an improper left turn in traffic,” said Lynch at the podium in Tallahassee. “When I asked the investigator why. he said that ‘Connor was not where he was supposed to be.’ He was not supposed to be in the bike lane, not supposed to be on the sidewalk. A question you might ask is, where was he supposed to be?”
The e-bike and e-scooter laws differ among municipalities – each carrying nuanced regulations, even if mostly adhering to Florida’s umbrella laws, confusing the legal perimeters. For Connor, the speed he was going would have dictated where he was “supposed to be” when he was struck by a turning car.
Since Connor’s death, Lynch has partnered with Tampa Bay General Hospital’s trauma center, the Florida Department of Transportation, and the American Automobile Association (AAA) to promote e-scooter and e-bike safety. Last October, Lynch contributed to AAA’s “safe streets campaign.”
Following Lynch’s testimony in Tallahassee, senators said they would look into adding e-scooters to the final bill, but made no promises. Despite this, Lynch reported to Poliverse that she “felt encouraged leaving Tallahassee from all the feedback.”
But Lynch expressed reservations and found the current bill’s language anemic. “The bill itself has been watered down to study micro-mobility with a task force,” she said, rather than make sweeping regulatory changes.
Meanwhile, Lynch is not being anemic about honoring her son – who was studying entrepreneurship at USF when he died – she established a scholarship, endowed in Connor’s name, that the university manages.
Connor was also in a fraternity. Annually, she and Garrick Lynch pay the membership fees for an existing “brother” in the fraternity as a tribute to their son.