PEVRA statement on Supervisor Wong's e-mobility enforcement resolution
PEVRA members have ridden tens of thousands of safe miles in San Francisco since 2018. PEVRA welcomes enforcement of the rules of the road against unsafe riding.
For immediate release · San Francisco, Calif.
We are teachers. We are nurses. We are sanitation workers. City employees.
We — are electric unicycle riders.
And we are San Franciscans. Just like you.
Many of us are natives. Raised in our neighborhoods. Taught in our schools. We share the streets of San Francisco with our fellow citizens every day, safely, respectfully, and with one priority above all others: the safety of everyone around us.
The Personal Electric Vehicle Riders Association (PEVRA) is a California nonprofit membership association, founded in San Francisco in 2018 and run entirely by volunteers. Our members ride electric unicycles (EUC) and other personal electric vehicles across this city and beyond every day, and have logged tens of thousands of documented safe miles. We teach new riders for free, we publish the law as it applies to our devices, and, above all else, we advocate safe riding practices at all times.
On the July 25 collision
On Saturday, July 25, 2026, a woman pushing a stroller was hospitalized after being struck by a man on an electric unicycle inside Sunset Dunes Park, according to the San Francisco Police Department and Mission Local. Our first thoughts are for her, her family, and her complete recovery.
No San Franciscan should be at risk strolling in a park or crossing a street.
The rider told a witness he was traveling at about 25 miles per hour. On his own account, he was in the wrong, and PEVRA says so plainly. Twenty-five miles per hour across a pedestrian crossing in a public park is reckless on any vehicle: a bicycle, a scooter, a car or a wheel. Mission Local reports that after police spoke with him, he got back on his wheel and rode away. PEVRA will not defend that conduct, and no one who rides with us should expect us to. PEVRA teaches every new rider the same rule from the first minute: in a space you share with people on foot, you ride at their pace, and you stop for them every time. Speed in a shared space must be a choice, not an accident. Nobody but the rider makes that choice, and the rider owns the consequences.
On the resolution
Supervisor Wong has said his resolution will urge the Police Department, the Municipal Transportation Agency and other city agencies to enforce the age, helmet, speed and sidewalk rules that already exist, with an emphasis on education and on parents when a minor is involved. PEVRA supports enforcement of the rules of the road against dangerous riding, whoever is doing it and whatever they are on. Speeding past pedestrians on sidewalks and riding recklessly on crowded multi-use paths are problems of conduct, not choice of vehicle. When a rider hurts someone, the injured person, their own insurer, or the public can be left carrying the cost. That is not because an electric unicycle rider chose to go uninsured. It is because most homeowner's, renter's and general liability policies exclude EUC and other personal electric vehicles from coverage. Even a rider who wants to carry insurance, or who believes they are covered when they are not, cannot buy the coverage they need to protect others and themselves.
PEVRA's position is that insurance which actually pays out should exist to buy, and that riders should carry it. But until it exists, any duty to insure is a ban by another name.
A framework for the safe, legal, insurable operation of electric unicycles is why PEVRA exists, and it is the work we ask others to join.
When the resolution is heard, PEVRA will bring three things to the table:
- Prioritize dangerous conduct. Speed, yielding to pedestrians, riding predictably and legally: these are rules about what any driver or rider is bound to do, and PEVRA asks the city to enforce them first, on every kind of vehicle.
- Get the vehicles right. An electric unicycle is not an e-bike. California's e-bike law (Vehicle Code sections 231 and 312.5) describes a bicycle, a machine a rider propels through pedals, fitted with an electric motor of less than 750 watts. An electric unicycle has footplates that riders stand on and call pedals, but nothing a rider does propels it, and the state has not yet written a category that fits the EUC. PEVRA invites Supervisor Wong, Mayor Lurie and every stakeholder into a dialogue that writes sensible rules for every kind of vehicle, and defines the electric unicycle as transportation that can safely share a street ecosystem as complex as San Francisco's. Santa Fe, New Mexico, wrote the electric unicycle into its traffic code by name in 2023. PEVRA would draw its power line differently, but the city proved the definition can be written. PEVRA's record of the Santa Fe code has every clause.
- Fund the education the resolution names. PEVRA has trained hundreds of new riders for free since 2018, in parks and on waterfront lots, with a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads and gloves offered to every one of them. We place that training at the city's disposal, and we will gladly show how experienced riders use electric unicycles safely every day.
PEVRA has asked for that seat at the table before. Mayor Lurie's Street Safety Initiative names e-bikes and scooters as a focus, and the city's six-month update in June promised to bring "delivery app companies, advocacy groups, city agencies and other stakeholders" together on public education, clear rules, enforcement and infrastructure. PEVRA has written to the Mayor's office multiple times since, offering to take part in that work and to give his staff a safety and capability demonstration, and has not yet had a reply. The offer stands.
What is PEVRA
PEVRA is the Personal Electric Vehicle Riders Association, a California nonprofit membership association based in San Francisco and founded in 2018. PEVRA is entirely volunteer-operated. We run free Jump On! EUC training and demo sessions; Westwheel, an annual riding expedition on public roads; and pevra.org, a public database of the law on personal electric vehicles, place by place, with every claim tied to the clause it comes from. Our position on the law is published at pevra.org/legal/policy.
Contact
Jesse Garnier, Executive Director, PEVRA — jesse@pevra.org
Related:
All releases and statements · About PEVRA
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