She asked an e-bike rider to slow down — he punched her in the head

I want to be clear about something before I get into this. My wife and I are planning to rent e-bikes on our Cape May trip later this summer. I have written about e-bikes before and I have tried, genuinely, to keep an open mind. The bikes themselves are not the problem. They are not going anywhere. I get that.

But something happened last Friday night on the Raritan Bay waterfront in Keyport that I cannot get past.

A woman was strolling along American Legion Drive with her husband at 9:45 in the evening. She saw a man on an e-bike and asked him to slow down. A reasonable request. A human being asking another human being to be considerate of the people around them.

He stopped. Got off his bike. And punched her in the head.

The woman was taken by Keyport EMS to Bayshore Medical Center, where she underwent several tests. Qadreek Strickland, a Keyport resident, was arrested and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct. Keyport police credited the public with helping identify him quickly, and thanked Aberdeen Police for their assistance. Good police work. Appropriate charges. None of it changes what happened to that woman on a summer Friday night for asking someone to slow down.

This is not about the bikes

I have felt the version of what that woman felt. Not the punch — but the frustration. I walk paved trails early in the morning, trails with signs that clearly say no motorized vehicles. And there they come, zipping past me at speeds that have no business being on a pedestrian path. I feel my annoyance rise and then I let it go, because I am not going to be the person who starts something on a walking trail over an e-bike.

But that woman in Keyport was not wrong to say something. She was right. The problem is that a certain segment of e-bike riders has decided the rules simply do not apply to them, that pedestrians can step aside, that trails are fair game, that anyone who objects deserves whatever response they get.

That is not an e-bike problem. That is a people problem. And we have been watching versions of it all spring — on boardwalks, at carnivals, in shopping center parking lots. A complete indifference to the people around you and a hair-trigger response when anyone pushes back.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari has been pushing for tighter e-bike regulations, and he put it plainly. Parents are buying these machines as if they are pedal bikes when a child could end up two counties away — or in Manhattan — and nobody knows where they are. He wants registration, insurance requirements and restrictions on how fast minors can ride. Those are reasonable things to want. So is asking a rider to slow down on a waterfront path.

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American Legion Drive Keyport | Google Maps

What I actually believe

I will say what I said about the boardwalk situation. It is not the bikes. It is not even most of the riders. It is a specific element that has decided the rules of public spaces do not apply to them — the same element that flooded Long Branch, that shut down carnivals in Monmouth County, that showed up on that waterfront in Keyport and responded to a simple request with a closed fist.

There is a version of this that sounds like a grouchy old man yelling at clouds. I know that. I am aware that I am a guy who walks trails at 5:30 in the morning and gets annoyed when e-bikes go past him. Get off my trail. I hear it.

But a woman asked someone to slow down and ended up in Bayshore Medical Center. That is not a generational complaint. That is a crime. And the e-bike lane is going to keep having this problem until the people who ride them understand that the trail, the waterfront, the boardwalk, the pedestrian path — those spaces belong to everyone. Not just to whoever is moving the fastest.

Co-existence is possible. It just requires the one thing that seems to be in shortest supply right now — basic consideration for the people around you.