In January, outgoing New Jersey governor Pat Murphy signed a first-in-the-nation bill that sought to make roads safer for everyone.

S-4834, passed by a wide bipartisan margin and sponsored by state Senate president Nick Scutari, was motivated by the “dramatic increase” in ebike use, which “created greater dangers for their operators, other motorists, and pedestrians,” Scutari wrote in a statement. Several teenagers in his district and elsewhere in the state had died on two-wheeled motorized vehicles, including a 13-year-old boy who died last fall after colliding with a landscaping truck.

The new law requires anyone who owns and rides a bike with pedal-assist tech or a throttle to be at least 15 years old and to have a license, either a driver’s license or a motorized bicycle license. (Riders can receive a stand-alone motorized bicycle only after passing a road test.) Riders must register their ebikes with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), and anyone on a bike that can travel faster than 20 mph must have insurance.

Now advocates in the state and elsewhere in the country say that one of the country’s first big experiments with ebike licensing is a slow-moving mess. Riders reported widespread confusion at local MVC branches, where workers have appeared uninformed about the new rules and have even reportedly run out of registration stickers. People with years-old ebikes who can’t provide proof of purchase have been told to pay sales tax again. Agency buildings lack bike parking and are hard to reach by public transit.

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