"This week's death of a 60-year-old woman who was run over by a pair of riders doubled up on an e-bike cruising on the Flushing Avenue bike lane outside the Brooklyn Navy Yard highlights a crisis that city officials have let simmer for years. The bike, made by the company Movcan, is not street-legal in the five boroughs. It sells for as little as $700, around the same price as many regular bicycles, and is advertised as reaching 30 mph."
""The problem is if you have tens of thousands of these vehicles on the street, you have no enforcement mechanism for the police to differentiate between what's legal and what's illegal," said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. "And room for so many more illegal vehicles to just skate through because we're just overwhelmed on the enforcement side.""
"The e-bike problem is yet another example of technology evolving far faster than regulations. E-bikes, which have boomed over the last decade, have been billed as a convenient, eco-friendly mode of transportation, and as a way to help the city's delivery workers meet New Yorkers' ever-growing demand for door-to-door service. But city data shows at least 638 people were injured and 17 were killed in crashes involving e-bikes last year. There are at least 65,000 deliveristas on city streets, and e-bike sales across the country have"
E-bikes have proliferated across New York City, including low-cost models capable of 30 mph that are not street-legal and often unregistered. Rapid growth in ownership and use has outpaced regulation and enforcement, making it difficult for police to distinguish legal from illegal vehicles. Delivery workers frequently use e-bikes to meet high consumer demand, increasing exposure on city streets. Many of these e-bikes sell for as little as $700, similar to regular bicycles, expanding accessibility and complicating visual enforcement. City data recorded at least 638 injuries and 17 deaths involving e-bikes last year, with tens of thousands of vehicles and at least 65,000 delivery riders contributing to enforcement challenges and public-safety risks.
Read at Gothamist
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]