I unfortunately missed this story before the 60-day comment period ended in late July, but as a parent of a brand new bike rider I gotta post my thoughts anyway.

There is an old Consumer Product and Safety Commission regulation that requires kids bikes to be sold with a coaster brake, and it is frankly nonsense. Makers of so-called “sidewalk bikes,” which the CPSC defines as bikes with a seat height no higher than 25 inches, must ship their bikes with a coaster brake even if they are designed to have perfectly capable handbrakes. Some bike makers have even resorted to shipping their bikes with three wheels: One for the front, one for the back, and one with a legally-required coaster brake hub that is intended to be thrown in the trash. This is not a great situation for many reasons.

This is why kids bike maker woom filed a request in 2022 to eliminate the requirement. From the rule change proposal summary:

The petition argues that this regulation for sidewalk bicycles is out of date. The petition asserts that it is “hard to compare the relative safety of bicycle braking between children’s bicycles with a combination of handbrakes and a footbrake to those with just handbrakes,” and alleges that there is no evidence that handbrakes are less safe than the required footbrakes—and may be safer than footbrakes. The request also asserts that manufacturers are producing and selling non-compliant children’s bicycles without footbrakes. The petition claims that footbrakes cost more to produce than handbrakes, putting manufacturers that comply with CPSC’s brake regulations at a competitive disadvantage to those who do not comply. The petition also states that European regulations do not require footbrakes for children’s bicycles.

My kid started by riding a balance bike, and her first pedal bike had hand brakes and no coaster brake. She never had any trouble operating the hand brakes. After riding for a while, we got her a new bike that was unfortunately just barely too big for her to ride comfortably. So we ended up borrowing a bike from a friend (thanks Lindsey!) that was a little smaller just so she’d have something to ride until she grew another inch or so. This borrowed bike had a coaster brake, and boy did it give my child trouble. The biggest problem with coaster brakes is that she had a lot more trouble getting the pedals into the “starting position” because she couldn’t move them backwards until they were in the right spot. This was very frustrating to her. Getting started is by far the most difficult part of learning to bike. It’s the final puzzle kids have to overcome before they are riding freely. Any impediment to getting their pedals in the starting position just makes learning to ride harder than it already is.