This invoice has a ticket to trip.
The Metropolis Council is mulling a regulation that may require license plates and registration for electrical bikes and scooters — after 47 folks have been killed in e-bike crashes during the last 5 years.
“The scourge of e-bikes in our streets, on our sidewalks, and even inside our buildings continues to wreak chaos, injure and maim folks, and, tragically, take lives,” Council member Bob Holden (D-Queens) stated Wednesday on the first public listening to on the invoice.
“We want accountability for the victims of e-bike incidents — and we want it now,” stated Holden, who launched the invoice in March. “This laws is lengthy overdue and can present a essential layer of oversight and accountability for these gadgets.”
The invoice – named Priscilla’s Regulation after a 69-year-old Head Begin employee who was killed when a Citi Bike plowed into her in Chinatown final September – would mandate a registration with the state Division of Motor Automobiles and an ID quantity on a visual plate for each bicycle and scooter with electrical help.
The laws would have an effect on Citi Bikes and electrical scooters utilized by meals supply drivers.
“This invoice additionally holds corporations accountable: platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash revenue from the rise of E mobility gadgets, they’ve a accountability to teach riders and implement site visitors legal guidelines amongst their customers and take away repeat offenders from their platforms,” Holden stated.
The council member first launched a model of the invoice in 2022, however that invoice by no means had a listening to. The present model has gained 31co-sponsors throughout occasion traces, in accordance with the Metropolis Council web site.
Supporters of the invoice, together with these from the NYC Electrical Car Security Alliance – a coalition of 1,200 members, together with 98 pedestrian and bicycle owner victims of “e-vehicle and moped violence” – say Priscilla’s Regulation will improve accountability in e-bike-related site visitors violations, accidents and crimes.
“Residing with a traumatic mind harm has grow to be my full-time job,” stated NYC EVSA cofounder Pamela Manasse, who was struck by an e-bike rider in 2022. “Each step I take is a combat for steadiness and vitality, however I refuse to surrender — and my mission now could be to push for safer streets so nobody else has to endure this ache.”
Critical accidents amongst different victims have included traumatic mind accidents, mind bleeds, fractured skulls, damaged bones and extra, the EVSA stated.
A dozen folks have died in 2024 alone from crashes together with e-bike and e-scooters, in accordance with metropolis knowledge, and 47 have died during the last 5 years – however crashes are nonetheless vastly underreported, in accordance with NYC EVSA member Andrew Nice.
“The primary intuition is for folks to are inclined to their accidents — they get up within the hospital and spend a number of days, even months within the hospital,” Nice stated. “And once they get out, the police would [sometimes] inform them that, ‘sorry, you possibly can solely report this inside 5 days,’ or it might be categorized as one thing like an assault.
“There’s only a actually inconsistent understanding of how this works by the NYPD,” he added. “They’re nonetheless figuring it out.”
The invoice’s supporters additionally argue licenses would assist pinpoint the events guilty for over 735 e-bike battery fires, which have resulted in 500 accidents and 30 fatalities since 2019, Holden stated.
However not everybody believes registration and licenses are an equitable resolution to the protection points.
A rep from the NYC Hospitality Alliance – which represents eating places and nightlife institutions within the boroughs – argues the invoice will “impose one more administrative and monetary burden on small companies and staff” both from homeowners being unable to search out drivers keen to license e-bikes or homeowners fronting the charges related to registration.
It stays unclear how a lot registration and license charges would value, in comparison with estimated registration charges upwards of $150 for automotive homeowners.
“Town already mandates that restaurant supply cyclists put on a particular ID quantity on their upper-body attire and their bikes should additionally bear a singular ID quantity,” alliance director Andrew Rigie advised The Submit, “so, it’s laborious to think about that by including a 3rd ID quantity to a supply bike the Metropolis Council goes to enhance road security.”
Nice counters that the related charges can be “marginal” – and meals supply app corporations should be held accountable for his or her drivers, a sentiment Division of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez shared at Wednesday’s listening to.
“Individuals who misuse [e-bikes] needs to be accountable for his or her actions, together with the supply app corporations that encourage sooner pace and reckless conduct to extend their income,” Rodriguez stated.
However regardless of the DOT’s settlement that the “intent of this invoice is one thing this administration helps,” the commissioner argued the administration already has the instruments to implement reckless e-bike drivers.
“A license plate isn’t essential for implementing it,” he stated.
Holden stated that accountability begins earlier than enforcement – and extra oversight on the automobiles will curb reckless driving earlier than it begins.
Holden grilled the DOT on the info concerning what number of e-bike riders should not following site visitors legal guidelines – however the DOT appeared to not have the figures.
“We’re within the strategy of accumulating extra knowledge,” an assistant commissioner stated to laughs from the viewers.
“I’m puzzled that DOT doesn’t have numbers immediately,” Holden stated. “You’ll be able to determine this out besides that you simply selected to not due to some laws you’re feeling it’s going to be imposing.
“These gadgets when unregulated pose dangers far past collision,” Holden added. “They’re actually a matter of life and demise.”
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