An Aliso Viejo mother is the latest Orange County parent to face felony charges related to her child’s use of an electric motorcycle, as prosecutors vowed to continue cracking down on parents who allow teens to illegally ride such high-powered vehicles.
Tommy Joe Major, 50, was arrested this week as investigators linked his 14-year-old son to an e-motorcycle crash that seriously injured an 81-year-old man on April 16. According to a news release From the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Orange County prosecutors said that months before the crash, Major “had been warned about the dangers of allowing his middle school son to illegally operate an e-motorcycle,” as well as about the possible consequences.
Her son is accused of “doing a wheelie” on his e-motorcycle in the middle of the road near El Toro High School in Lake Forest when he hit the 81-year-old man, who prosecutors say was a Vietnam War veteran who was working as a substitute teacher. The man remains hospitalized and is in critical condition, according to prosecutors.
Meijer is now charged with misdemeanor counts of felony child endangerment and participation in a felony after the fact of a crime, as well as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, lending a motor vehicle to an unlicensed driver and providing false information to an officer. It was not immediately clear what criminal charges, if any, have been brought against her son, who has not been identified because he is a minor.
If convicted of all charges against him, Meijer faces a maximum sentence of six years in state prison.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said state law makes it nearly impossible for prosecutors to hold teens accountable, so his office has taken aim at parents. Juveniles in the US are subject to a different justice system, which focuses more on rehabilitation than the adult system due to children’s continuing development.
“Parents who buy their child an e-motorcycle and let them ride it illegally or help them modify an e-bike to turn it into an e-motorcycle are handing their children a loaded weapon – and those parents are being prosecuted,” Spitzer said in a statement. “There is no reason why an unlicensed, untrained kid, with no knowledge of the rules of the road, should be driving a motorcycle that can go nearly 60 mph alongside cars on a public road and think that by some miracle they will be safe.”
According to prosecutors, about a year ago, Meijer spoke with Orange County deputies after someone posted photos of her 13-year-old son riding an e-motorcycle. At the time, Meijer told deputies she had purchased a Saron Ultra B electric motorbike for her son and “knew he drove it recklessly,” according to body-worn camera footage reviewed by prosecutors. At that time, deputies “warned her that if she continued to allow him to operate an e-motorcycle, which he cannot legally operate, she could face possible criminal charges,” the release said.
Following the accident involving a Sarron motorbike on April 16, Major was recorded on body-worn camera footage saying that neither he nor his teenage son owned or had access to any such Sarron, the release said. Deputies responding to the crash said the rider of the e-motorcycle left the scene.
saroron motorbike Advertised Online “It’s as easy to ride as a bicycle with the torque and power of an off-road motorcycle.” According to the website, it is marketed as an off-road dirt bike, capable of reaching 60 mph.
Prosecutors said those riding such e-motorcycles must be 16 years of age and have a motorcycle license.
This year, Orange County prosecutors have charged a third of Major’s parents with criminal charges in connection with their children illegally operating e-motorcycles. Last month, Spitzer’s office filed child endangerment charges against a Yorba Linda man accused of modifying his son’s e-bike to go up to 60 mph, essentially making it a motorcycle. Prosecutors said a 12-year-old boy was seriously injured when he ran a red light on a bike and was hit by a car.
