Dalyn Tapia

IN HIS OWN WORDS

Last year I lost a close friend in an e-bike accident. He was struck by a speeding car and did not survive. That is not something you just move on from.

I have spent the last three and a half years working as a Life Safety Specialist. My whole job is prevention. Not responding after something goes wrong, but identifying the risk before it gets the chance to become a tragedy. I am the person who shows up before the emergency happens.

After losing my friend, I started doing what I always do. I went looking for answers. I spent months going through hospital data, accident reports, and injury studies. What I found was a crisis that is accelerating fast, and almost no one talking about it.

Adolescent trauma visits from e-bike accidents have gone up 900 percent in recent years. Teen ridership grew 15 percent in 2024 alone. The market is projected to hit 2.5 billion dollars by 2034. The numbers keep moving in one direction and the safety tools are nowhere near keeping pace. Everyone sees this coming. Nobody is doing anything about it.

The detail that really got to me was the speed limiter problem. Most parents assume the limiter that came with the bike is keeping their kid safe. It is not. Teens are removing them in minutes using free tutorials online. With the limiter gone, these bikes can hit 35 to 45 miles per hour or more. That is not a bicycle accident anymore. That is a vehicle collision.

I have teenage siblings and a young nephew. This is not abstract to me.

I grew up in Utah. I have always been an outdoors person, someone who gets it when a kid wants the freedom of riding outside. I am not trying to take that away from anyone.

But I also know what these accidents look like up close. I know what the data says. And I have people in my own life who ride these bikes every day with no real safety net in place.

The moment I realized there was not a single device on the market designed to give parents actual control over their teen's e-bike, the decision was made. Not a GPS tracker that just shows you where they are. Not a theft device. Something that actually limits the speed, detects a crash, and tells you immediately if something is wrong.

GPS trackers exist. Theft devices exist. Nothing that actually prevents the crash exists.

Cars have speed monitoring and crash alerts for teen drivers. Fleet vehicles have had speed governing technology for decades. Smartphones have parental controls. But e-bikes, one of the fastest growing vehicles among teenagers in the country, had nothing built for the parents who are responsible for them.

RideSentinal is the answer to that gap. It is what I wish had existed for my friend. It is what I want on every bike my siblings and nephew ride. And it is built for anyone who has ever watched their kid ride off down the street and spent the next hour hoping they would come back safe.

The numbers are alarming and they keep getting worse. Everyone can see this crisis coming and nobody is doing anything about it. That is exactly why I built RideSentinal.

Dalyn Tapia, Founder of RideSentinal

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