Aliso Viejo, California – A California mother faces felony charges after her 14-year-old son collided with an 81-year-old man while riding an electric motorcycle, authorities said.
Tommy Joe Major, 50, was arrested by the Orange County Police Department on Tuesday at the Lamoureux Justice Center in Orange.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the incident occurred last month in Lake Forest, California. Authorities said Ben Majer hit the elderly man while he was “doing a wheelie.”
The victim — a substitute teacher and Vietnam veteran — remains hospitalized in critical condition.
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“Parents who buy their children an e-scooter and allow them to ride it illegally or help modify e-bikes to turn them into e-scooters are handing their child a loaded gun — and these parents will be prosecuted. This is not a threat,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a news release. That’s a promise.'” This 81-year-old survived air combat missions in Vietnam protecting freedom, and now he’s clinging to life because a mother refused to raise her child and was run over in the street by a car that should never have been on the road. There is absolutely no reason why an unlicensed, untrained child with no understanding of the rules of the road should ride a motorcycle that can reach speeds of nearly 60 mph next to cars on a public street and think that by some miracle they will be safe. The state Legislature has made it nearly impossible for prosecutors to hold juveniles accountable for serious crimes, and the only way to stop the carnage e-bikes and e-scooters are causing throughout Orange County is to hold parents accountable for the crimes they allow their children to commit.
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The district attorney’s office said that Mager had previously warned of the dangers of electric motorcycles.
“During a 28-minute interaction with two Orange County sheriff’s deputies, Major admitted that she had bought her son a Surron E motorcycle and knew he had driven it recklessly,” the District Attorney’s Office said. “Deputies warned her that she could face possible criminal charges if she continued to allow him to ride the e-scooter, which he could not legally ride.”
Class 3 electric bike riders must be 16 years of age and have a valid motorcycle driver’s license.
Mejer was charged with one felony count of child endangerment, one felony count of accessory after the fact, one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, one misdemeanor count of loaning a vehicle to an unlicensed driver and one misdemeanor count of providing false information to a peace officer.
If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison.
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