Text and Photos by Daniel Krieger
Last fall, Janet Schroeder decided that something had to be done about all the e-vehicles driving every which way in her neighborhood and putting pedestrians in danger. (“e-vehicles” cover all personal mobility devices that are battery powered, such as e-scooters, e-bikes, hoverboards, and mopeds.) She had been actively involved over the years in causes she cares about, but grassroots organizing was new for her. The turning point came in September when she read about Pamela Greitzer-Manasse’s grievous brain injury, after having also been horrified by the death of Lisa Banes a year prior to that.
“I just started getting super upset,” she recounted in a recent interview. As a longtime Upper West Sider, she remembers a time when this issue didn’t exist.
“There has been a surge of e-vehicles over the last few years that the city has not been able to keep up with,” she said.
So she posted her thoughts about the dangers of e-vehicles on social media, spoke at Community Board 7 meetings about it, and began contacting City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who in January invited her to join a task force, which is pending.
And then, earlier this year, she reached out to Greitzer-Manasse and along with another Upper West Sider who is a cyclist, Deb Chusid, they formed NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance. “We all had the same mission,” she said, “to make the streets in New York City safer for pedestrians.”
On a recent evening, Schroeder, who works as an actor and in medical sales, kicked off the group’s weekly Zoom meeting by explaining the basics to several newcomers.
“We are New York City victims and potential victims of e-vehicles,” she said, adding that crashes result from excessive speed, blowing through red lights, going against traffic, and riding on sidewalks. The group’s mission, she went on, is to get e-vehicles classified as “motor vehicles,” with the accompanying regulations, rather than “motorized vehicles,” which are mostly unregulated. The mission entails getting a law passed that requires registration, licensing and insurance as well as ensuring enforcement of both the new law as well as the laws that already exist.
Then several victims of e-vehicle crashes, starting with Greitzer-Manasse, shared their stories followed by a brainstorming session facilitated by Schroeder, who encouraged all to participate in the lively discussion.
One man shared an item from a list he had written “to curb the e-mobility craziness,” suggesting that e-vehicles riding on the sidewalk should be confiscated. “We are looking to change behavior,” he said. “If you are literally taking away e-bikes or e-scooters, word gets out.”
According to him, the bike lobby and politicians who support it are at odds with the group’s efforts. He claimed that organizations such as Transportation Alternatives, whose mission also entails safer streets, embrace the use of e-vehicles. (Transportation Alternatives did not respond to a query about its stance on them.)
“This issue is only about safety,” said Schroeder. “It’s not political. We want all types of different people,” including cyclists, those of any political bent, and even e-vehicle drivers who want safer streets. “We are not anti-environment or anti-deliverista.”
Toward the end of the meeting, items for action that had come up included: finding more victims and potential victims to join the group; documenting e-vehicles breaking the law; setting up a website and social media — starting with Twitter; demonstrating at council members’ offices; and getting testimonial videos of victims.
The next day, Schroeder spoke to WSR on the phone about how the movement has been gaining traction. “It’s amazing how many people are buzzing about this now,” she said. “People are having more near misses, and there is a momentum for sure compared to last fall.”
One metric of public interest comes from a change.org petition posted in March by a member of the sister group, Pedestrians for Bike Safety, which argues for e-vehicle regulations and has so far gotten over 4,000 signatures.
Despite having lots supporters, some do take issue with the work Schroeder is doing. She has been criticized, sometimes harshly, on Facebook and Nextdoor.
A recent post by Schroeder on Nextdoor shows how charged and personal this issue can be. She asked if anyone had been hit by an e-vehicle. One woman responded that she had had many close calls, a man said he had been struck several times, and a woman said her dog had been hit and injured on the sidewalk. One commenter bluntly asked, “Why you?” Schroeder offered a detailed response. But another commenter, disputing her assertion that e-bikes can go over 30 mph, wrote: “Your ignorance and bias is showing,” and claimed that e-bikes can’t go over 25 mph. (The fastest e-bike on the market can go up to 70 mph.)
“I’m just looking for safety for everyone,” she said. “I’m not anti-e-vehicles or anti-anyone. It’s about common sense. It’s anti-people-dying-when-they-get-hit-by-e-vehicles. E-vehicles are here to stay, so what can we do to make them safer?”
Many seemed sympathetic to the cause, though, and one woman even came to her defense, writing: “Please do not distort what is actually going on here: a committed citizen engaging in advocacy for the public good.”
For more information about NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance and to join the next meeting, send an email to: nyc-evsa@outlook.com
“The mission entails getting a law passed that requires registration, licensing and insurance as well as ensuring enforcement of both the new law as well as the laws that already exist.” Yep – Hopefully this includes riding the wrong way / removing mopeds and motorcycles from the bike lanes, uncovered or altered license plates. Add cameras for the bike lane too!
This is exactly what needs to be done. The fees collected from licensing and registration could be funneled toward improving conditions in our public schools!
Thank you for this article! I have been fighting this battle for pedestrian safety for a very long time now with little result. Many others have as well. in fact, this is part of a letter I wrote to Mayor Adams just yesterday! I will be contacting this group for sure.
“The lack of action on this blight on our streets and sidewalks seems to many of us the result of the city’s capture by very powerful and well-funded lobbying groups with whom the city has a gentlemen’s agreement to back off. Never have I seen a police officer stopping a law-breaking cyclist! In years past when I rode a bike daily in NY, police didn’t just stop you, they confiscated your bike if you were violating the law in an irresponsible manner.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that New Yorkers don’t get what’s going on because they do. No enforcement of any laws on the books? No penalties for those who violate those few laws? Speeding through red lights where pedestrians are crossing. Riding on the sidewalks. No licenses, registration or insurance for riders. No liability for the delivery companies that contract with these delivery persons. No liability for those who injure, maim or kill pedestrians. Shameful!
Is this what you really want for the tax-paying pedestrians of New York? Who is it that you feel government is meant to protect? Grubhub, Doordash, Citibike, Trans Alt at the expense of millions of seniors, disabled and regular pedestrians?
In my many years of living in New York I’ve never seen the city be so cavalier and unresponsive about pedestrian safety. Not to mention the explosion of batteries which are the cause of so many fatal fires. Now those same e-vehicles are welcome on subways and buses. Seriously??
So sadly it’s begun to seem that what can’t be achieved in regulation and enforcement by you, and the City Council will eventually have to be settled in the courts. A very sad statement for any Mayor of a major city.”
Boycott app delivery. See how fast things change.
Brillant letter, Ms. Simon! No matter what the response to it, it needed to be said!
Have definitely noticed more teenagers on Citibike and e-scooters (upright) lately – all going through red lights, often going the wrong way and increasingly with Citibike with a friend riding in the basket.
Dangerous for them and everyone else.
I yelled out to a few teenagers who almost hit me the other day as they were both going the wrong way and through a red light as I was crossing the street with my dog and was met with an expletive and a laugh. Something has to change!
Is the problem e-bikes, or people breaking existing laws on them?
The problem is with unregistered, uninsured e-bikes and mopeds AND breaking existing laws on them. Also the Grubhubs etc. want deliveries to be made at a ridiculous speed and they should be responsible for their employees breaking the law. If they told the delivery people they had to obey traffic rules even if it took a little longer, then deliverers wouldn’t feel under such pressure to ignore pedestrians and lights.
Also the fact that the city and police turn their backs on infractions has led to this mess.
Apparently there are no laws that really regulate them.
Laws? Who is paying attentionto any laws, if indeed they exist?? Every time I leave my building I know my life is at risk because of e-bikes, e-scooters, Citibikes, ALL bikes running red lights, riding at high speeds, riding on sidewalks and paying no heed to pedestrians at ALL. These law breakers could easily become the next victims. Is that what it to take to teach them a lesson?! I am disgusted, horrified, appalled and very angry that people on wheels threaten people’s safety and lives without impunity. Or conscience! I say burn them all
It’s the combination – people breaking laws with e-bikes can cause much greater consequences than people breaking the laws on a slower moving bike, or their own two legs. It’s the exact same reason we regulate driving cars and motorcycles – the damage when something goes wrong can be catastrophic.
Will be contacting them too as a fellow ebike hit victim.
Does anyone really believe that any politician in the City of New York–including District 6–has the political courage to confront the menace posed by e-bikes? Or to hold the restaurants using them as delivery vehicles accountable? Citi Bike has disrupted the civility of pedestrian activity and e-bikes have only worsened it. Most problems confronting this increasingly uncivil city can be resolved with political courage, a quality lacking in all but a few of the people we err in electing to public office.
We can have many laws in place, but the issue is enforcement. Ask any police offer and s/he will say there’s nothing to be done about it. Chase after them? Let’s be real. Unless traffic cameras are placed at every intersection and fines enforced, we’ve lost this battle. And don’t expect e vehicle users to apply for licenses.
It’s out of control. And terrifying.
Actually there can be effective policing with patrol and or cameras at several intersections that change daily. A few bikes confiscated for 24 – 48 hours with a fine at pickup should put some scare into many riders. The corners need to be selected daily at random and be supplemented with patrol. That presumes we can move ahead with licensing and registering e bikes. Also we need to have police in the parks ticketing motor scooter riders that use bike lanes. That should be easier.
Exactly. The ideas and solutions that people propose require that the offenders abide by laws and regulations. Hate to say it, but the culture of the majority of the dangerous cyclists plays an important role in the chaos on the streets. The numbers don’t lie.
The e-bikes have more severe consequences when they hit pedestrians than non motorized bikes- and they are indeed deadly. Grevious injuries such as my own are reported but most go unreported. She’s RIGHT! Time to fix this! Licensing means accountability for illegal acts and promotes conscientious operation of these e-bikes.
I fully support any effort to make our streets safer. The fact that we need additional legislation and to jump through so many hoops, just to create a safe environment to simply cross the street or even walk on the sidewalk is LUDICROUS! What if a car drove on the sidewalk.. What if a car rode down a one way street the wrong way?? immediate outrage and police action.. but because the vehicles causing the danger come in ever changing forms we are battling red tape and enforcement just for COMMON SENSE action. I HAVE HAD MULTIPLE NEAR HITS. DAILY! As have the members of my family. We walk around like fighter pilots looking every which way before stepping off the curb. Why do we need to wait for an actual HIT with injuries or fatalities ( not an accident.. a HIT due to someone not following the rules set to keep our citizens safe) before there is ACTION? It is our collective civic responsibility to care and create a safe community. We can’t just raise our hands , shout and then move on as if its a “new normal”. Why should we. There should be consequences for not following the rules.. If I am driving down a street and a bike is coming the wrong way and I change lanes and hit that bike.. pretty sure I’m the one getting arrested and living with the trauma of hurting or possibly killing a cyclist.. when that cyclist put themselves in harms way intentionally! I have called Brewers office, 311 etc.. TO NO AVAIL.
MAYOR ADAMS NEEDS TO MAKE THIS A PRIORITY. I have plenty of video supporting daily rule breaking by bikes, mopeds, e-bikes of all kinds!
I will be joining the groups working to make sure changes are put in place. NYC is designed for pedestrians.. that should be top priority for creating rules around bikes and other vehicles. You can’t just throw them on the road without a plan. Which is exactly what NYC has done. You can’t save the planet and get to work safely or in a cost effective manner on a bike if you are dead or injured!
PLEASE NYC STOP THE MADNESS!!!!
Never mind the bike going through the red light in the picture on Amsterdam – what about the SUV literally in the crosswalk?
Thank you!! Sure e-bikes should follow the rules but I’m way more concerned about the SUVs with illegally blacked out windows that are parked in the crosswalk and running red lights all over the UWS
The SUV is registered with the NYS DMV and, if it is a for-hire vehicle, with the NYC TLC. Identifying information (license plates and TLC tags) are affixed to the vehicle. If an accident occurs, it is possible to identify the SUV and its driver. When an ebike going 40+ MPH on the sidewalk — without license plates or tags — knocks down a pedestrian in a hit-and-run, there is no way to identify the cyclist or (in the case of a Deliverista) the owner of the business employing them. Since it is impossible to hold cyclists responsible for their tortious conduct, they have no reason to obey the law or act carefully or responsibly. I’ve been walking and cycling NYC streets for 60+ years, and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a licensed vehicle run a red light. In my 10-block walk to work this morning, I counted over 15 bikes, ebikes and scooters run red lights, 10+ riding on the sidewalk, and a dozen riding the wrong way in the bike lane, endangering other cyclists as well as pedestrians. So yes, the SUV is wrong. But, cyclists operate much more recklessly and create a much greater danger, particularly in crowded Midtown, than motor vehicles.
These are motor vehicles and need to be registered and insured. Operators need to be tested and licensed. Violations need to be informed.
Why bother to have regulations for bicycles if there is no enforcement? https://www.dot.ny.gov/display/programs/bicycle/faq
I can only imagine the excuses, such as not enough personnel to monitor traffic of all types. For the benefit of pedestrians who deserve to be safe, maybe there needs to be a big donor to get things on track. Like Michael Bloomberg??
I don’t really see the need for registration, etc. Treating them like motor vehicles seems like overkill. I DO want to support e-bikes, since I think they are legitimately one of the best ways to get fewer people to drive cars in this country.
But of course the behavior of the e-bikes and scooters (both seated and standing) is absolutely ludicrous. I cannot imagine it is legal for them to run red lights, ride on sidewalks, go the wrong way down one-way streets and bike lanes, speed down the CP Drive, etc etc. I have never once seen one of these guys getting tickets for these things, and they generally seem to ride with complete impunity. Where is the enforcement? Cops don’t seem to care about anything in this city.
Overkill? Ask Lisa banes if it is overkill. Oh, you can’t- she’s already dead, killed by a scooter.
Someone swinging a 30 ounce baseball bat at you is assault with a deadly weapon but aiming a 250 pound ebike and rider at you is not? Respectfully, you need to rethink this.
<> Perhaps in L.A. or other areas with suburban sprawl, ebikes replace cars. But in NYC, for personal transportation use, ebikes mostly replace mass transit use.
The problem with supporting e-bikes as a way of having fewer cars is that in countries where everyone got around with mopeds, they all bought cars the minute they were able to.
This is great. I fully support this movement. I think if the police wrote some tickets then the ones breaking the law would get message. Keep up the good work NYC E Vehicle Safety Alliance! Thanks West Side Rag for publishing this as well.
Writing tickets? A marginal approach. Holding the employer legally responsible would be a more effective solution in the case of delivery people, who, I observe, commit the majority of these violations.
In 2022 there were 100,000 traffic crashes (those are cars and trucks) in NYC. 37k of them caused injuries and killed over 250 people. 37,000 vehicles caused injuries to humans. They weren’t ebikes. Drivers killed a lot of cyclists and pedestrians and other motorists. They’re the problem. They have “rules” but mostly are not enforced. If you want to make the streets safer, do everything you can to add bike lanes and pedestrianized spaces. Add bollards. Replace car parking. Daylight intersections. Raise crosswalks. Pass Sammy’s Law and lower the speed limit to 15-20mph. I’m not seeing any serious solutions here. Shame on westside rag for giving this oxygen.
https://crashmapper.org/#/?cfat=true&cinj=true&endDate=2022-12&geo=citywide&identifier=&lngLats=%255B%255D&mfat=true&minj=true&noInjFat=false&pfat=true&pinj=true&startDate=2022-01&vbicycle=true&vbusvan=true&vcar=true&vmotorcycle=true&vother=true&vscooter=true&vsuv=true&vtruck=true
It is not either/or. Of course, reckless driving is a huge problem in this City. That doesn’t make e-bikes any safer for pedestrians. Both issues need to be addressed.
And how many people died in fires due to lithium batteries for bikes overheating? Thinking the number is 6 in NYC year to date. Just another way bike riders are endangering others. Admit it, you value the convenience of delivery over the safety of citizens.
West Side Rag is not giving oxygen to a “fake” problem but a real one! There are many, many unreported injuries from bikes of all sorts. No one is recording injuries on bikes even if they were to be reported. Who would they be reported to? The police who are not enforcing the laws which exist??
Yes of course there are car injuries with millions of cars and trucks in a densely populated city. And those injuries and deaths are reported. Cars and trucks are registered and licensed. You must learn to drive and pass tests to be licensed. You must have liability insurance to drive so that if you do injure someone you are held responsible. You are not a nameless, faceless person on a bike riding 25 or 40 mph without any identity or insurance and no regulation or enforcement at all.
There have been many changes by the DOT to make streets safer. Can more be done? Of course it can. But to remove all cars from our streets is frankly a naive and elitist concept so favored by lobbyists like Trans Alt. Are you suggesting that those who work in hospitals in say the Bronx where public transit is sparse should not have jobs in hospitals where they must DRIVE in order to get there? Or that someone who lives in Manhattan but has an elderly Mother living in New Jersey nowhere near a bus route should not be able to have transportation to get to her? Or are you suggesting we should all become dependent on commoditized car shares and bike shares that for many are unaffordable or not available when needed? What a windfall for all these car share companies that would be!
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater or prescribe what’s good for you at the expense of so many others. The article here refers to the completely unregulated e-vehicles and bike traffic which exists in this city from 65,000 deliveristas, an explosion of mopeds, scooters and bicyclists and the injury and danger that results from them.
Jeff,
PS…copying another post….
“Must we denounce anyone who does not agree with us 100%?”
I don’t wish to rant here. Suggestion: A law to the effect that 1) Damage or injury caused by operating a powered vehicle contrary to law is no longer ever considered an accident but rather criminal assault (riding a motorcycle on an NYC sidewalk and creaming a pedestrian cannot honestly be considered anything but that) with he same penalties as, for example, striking a pedestrian on the sidewalk by an unlicensed driver of an automobile, more serious if vehicle is unlicensed as well. 2) The operator AND their employer are both responsible for all civil penalties and damages whether or not insured, and the employer (even if an out-of-state web business ) is liable for criminal penalties if it did not take documented proper steps to assure compliance, that to be compounded if any previous incidents occurred. Attorneys ought to get behind the latter, sounds lucrative.
Thank you and just a note in case you are unaware –
This Saturday, June 10th, 2023, I was on the pedestrian/bike path ( shared) with the elderly, little kids on bikes, grownups on bikes and a constant parade of men on motorcycles going 40 – 50 mph. It was unbelievably dangerous to everyone.
The 24th precinct has really stepped up its enforcement on this issue. Each month the precinct command meets with the community on this and any other issue you want to ask about. The next meeting is Wednesday, June 21st at 7pm. The meeting is held at the Bloomingdale branch library at 151 West 100th street Between Col & Amsterdam Aves. Its open to all.
The precinct commander will give brief summary of crime numbers/issues in the area and then open it up to Q&A
I would greatly encourage you to attend.
Citibike doesn’t communicate to their riders/members safety tips. Everyday there is a citibike rider going the wrong way on the bike lane and they don’t hear you because they all are wearing headphones. Citibike only cares about #members and $$
Interestingly, City DOT encourages and promotes Citibike use – check out DOT twitter
But incredibly, City DOT does not encourage use of bus and subway!
Because NYCDOT has been regulatory captured by the bike lobby. There’s a lot of money involved and UWS resident and Open Plans founder Mark Gorton’s Tower Research Capital owns stock in some of these app companies like Lyft etc.
I will point out that the same people aligned with Riders Alliance, Transportation Alternatives etc. are fine with express buses between the outer boroughs and Manhattan being cut or service being made worse on commuter rail because of higher subsidies and even called the LIRR a “luxury service” publicly but want public subsidies for Citibike. Manhattan residents opposed express buses between the outer boros and Manhattan when subways were more unsafe in the 1970s and 1980s, but many Manhattan residents wouldn’t care if Citibike got public subsidies and they themselves use Citibike to avoid unsafe subways.
Francis,
wow.
thank you for this information.
I am completely discouraged by the lack of interest in protecting the safety of pedestrians. And as a cyclist, commuting for 16 years in the city, I have never felt more unsafe than now. I have written letters to various officials and received no responses. Perhaps what we require is a collective and consistent public shaming of e-bikes and cyclists breaking the law. Maybe we need to form a picket line along Central Park West shaming everyone going the wrong direction. Perhaps embarrassment and being confronted (not just by 1 angry passerby) collectively by community members in mass could make a difference.. perhaps we need a campaign, a horn to blow, a rally cry, something everyone who is a part of this movement can do that riders will start to get that we aren’t happy with their behavior.
Of course it’s a present and clear danger. These are weapons and one hit can ruin a life forever as we are seeing. Let’s not make any apologies for trying to make the streets safer for ourselves, our children and our families. Lawlessness should not be normalized — there are bikes and scooters routinely breaking lights, driving the wrong way, driving on sidewalks and blatantly disregarding what civilized society should look like. The streets are meant to be safe for everyone. Plain and simple. Thank you for doing the hard work here, Jane Schroeder. Clearly our elected officials won’t do anything about it and clearly the Transportation department has no clue what to do.
The answer is simple, speed bumps in the bike lanes. Slow everyone down, even the non motorized bikes. Same thing in central park, speed bumps at the intersections. Force the spandex to slow down and keep everyone safe.
As George Carlin once astutely pointed out, a “near miss” is an actual hit.
Just signed petition and sent donation to Change.org. Stepping off the sidewalk and onto the street in NYC has become a scary and unpredictable experience. No matter whether it is a one way street or not, I look both ways and then back again and still pray something doesn’t get me before I can get back onto a sidewalk. Where of course, pedestrians are not safe either but safer than the street.
I’m all in; I support the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance (catchy name, I must say). But I’m scouring the interwebs and I can’t seem to find their website, FB page, Insta, Twitter . . . in fact I can’t find any web presence at all. So I’m hopeful that will change soon.
This is a new group and so they are still setting up things on the web, referred to in the article as items for action. As the article mentions: “Toward the end of the meeting, items for action that had come up included….setting up a website and social media — starting with Twitter.” So if you click on that hyperlink to Twitter, in that sentence, you will arrive at the Twitter page. The website and Facebook page are forthcoming. For more information about this, reach out to the email address at the end of the article.
BTW..
1) this morning saw a parent on Citibike with a kid (about 7) sitting in the basket.
the parent was riding on the sidewalk; the child had no helmet.
given the location, assume they were on their way to PS 199.
2) yesterday, saw a parent with a child on an upright razor scooter (just like photo). and going through red lights.
3) the chaos and danger is worsening as more tourists are riding on Citibike and tourist bike rentals. they have no idea what they are ding, don’t know NYC and are trying to sightsee on a bike. tourists need to walk/bus/subway.
This alliance (and the article) seems to just add to the confusion around these things.
Analog bikes without any motor or electric power are street-legal and have been for a long time. The question of adherence to traffic laws is an entirely separate thing, but let’s also not throw out the baby with the bathwater here.
True e-bikes, stand-up electric scooters of low power, and even some sit-down electric scooters (low-power, weighing no more than 100 pounds) have been street legal since 2020. Again, not all operators of such things are adhering to traffic laws well, and again, babies and bathwater.
Pure electric or gas-powered mopeds/light-motorcycles of 200 pounds or more (like the one whose driver killed Lisa Baines) are not legal unless licensed and registered, and driven with a driver’s license. If their speed is capped at 30 mph (like Revel e-mopeds), an ordinary driver’s license will do, it doesn’t need to be moto-specific. Some of these things do not actually meet licenseability requirements and cannot possibly be street-legal. But many such vehicles are being driver entirely unlawfully and with apparently near-complete impunity.
In my mind the chaos and high danger is really worst with the last category.
Oh, and there are also a few e-micro-mobility sorts of things (electric skateboards, onewheel-style skateboards, stand-up electric unicycles, etc.) that the 2020 law never spoke to and are also not street-legal. I feel like these things are relatively rare and aren’t contributing nearly as much chaos as the mopeds are; or the OVERPOWERED stand-up scooters that people will use at speeds of 30-35+ mph if they find themselves in an unchecked environment. Ugh.
Absolutely NOTHING is allowed on the sidewalk — forget electric, no bikes, skateboards, scooters, or roller blades, and I mean unmotorized. Nothing. Been law since time immemorial.
I would simply point out, as others have, that when the bike lanes were created and implemented, they were NOT intended for electric vehicles, whether e-bikes, e-scooters or, now increasingly, regular scooters. They are for bicycles. PERIOD.
The solution is to put these people in jail. We must raise the issue from a misdemeanor to a felony with jail time for anybody that breaks the law with their e scooter or e-bike . Once they get out of jail they also must pay a fine and do community service . The upper west side belongs to upper westsiders no delivery driver is going to make our streets into anarchy . If they continue to break the law we must give prison time . They will stop
How can we get this planned e-bike safety outreach and education here on the UWS? https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2023/summer-of-cycling.shtml
Check out Bianna’s law enacted 2019 (S.5685/A.4853.A) requiring NYS approved safety training for every operator of motorized water craft (boats, jetskis, etc.) overbtye age of 16.
That’s the model. Read Gov Cuomo’s statement & substitute mopeds & ebikes….let’s do this!
https://parks.ny.gov/newsroom/press-releases/release.aspx?r=1532
Reckless bike riding has been the #1 complaint in the City for the past 40 years, way before e-bikes. Making e-bikes legal was the worst move this City ever made. Paris recently outlawed them. We need to be next. I don’t care how powerful any bike lobby is; they need to go. Period.
Someone has to be done. I saw an older gentleman on my street get absolutely creamed by a delivery bike going the wrong way down Columbus. There was no way he would have seen him with the restaurant shed obscuring his view. It’s an absolute shame. On top of that. Now these guys ride up and down the side walk with kids rightfully running out the front doors of their buildings. It’s madness. This stuff has to stop.