An Awesome Guide to Operating an Affordable E-Bike in NYC

THE E-BIKES AND SCOOTERS…
Edward Koral
The proposed rule does not go anywhere near far enough to deal with the scourge of motorized e-bikes in our city. We are being terrorized by thousands of unregulated, unregistered, speeding e-bikes, driven by hordes of anonymous and unaccountable people who should be duly licensed to operate a motor vehicle, but aren’t.
New Yorkers now experience all of the following terrifying experiences, multiple times every day:
– E-bikes and scooters routinely ignoring red and yellow traffic signals, blithely running red lights as a rule;
– E-bikes and scooters traveling at speeds greater than 20 mph;
– E-bikes and scooters riding on city sidewalks;
– E-bikes and scooters traveling in the wrong direction on city streets and avenues, as well as in city-constructed bike lanes;
– E-bikes and scooters riding with general traffic (or on sidewalks) on streets and avenues that already contain bike lanes for their use;
– E-bikes and scooters deliberately winding their way past pedestrians with little more than 6 inches to spare, without stopping or even slowing down; and
– E-bikes and scooters whose operators are riding while texting on their smartphones.
In short, E-bicycles and scooters are a menace to our city. Their owners and operators must be brought under control so that they can stop posing a grevous threat of bodily harm to our people.
1. Require that every single e-bike ridden in NYC be registered with the New York State DMV.
2. Require that every single e-bike operator be duly licensed to operate a motor vehicle.
3. This should go without saying, but enforce traffic laws that require vehicles to stop at red signals and yield to pedestrians.
…AND THE PEOPLE WHO DRIVE THEM
Bike Lanes were built with millions of NYC taxpayer dollars. The people who drive the e-bikes and scooters in these lanes are economically disadvantaged, and subject to dangerous working conditions, as well as callous and shameful employment practices by those to employ them.
The lanes have been taken over by delivery app organizations: Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub/Seamless. If you don’t think so, sit outside on Amsterdam Avenue during the 7 pm to 9 pm rush and count how many non food-delivery bikes go by. The bikers are going too fast, are frequently not wearing helmets, are frequently texting, and occasionally traveling in the wrong direction. Sometimes they’re on the sidewalk. The delivery personnel are rarely employed as W-2 employees by these delivery app organizations; they are considered independent contractors. Doing this allows the app companies to:
– Avoid paying employment taxes, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, or workers’ compensation insurance;
– Fire these people at will, with very little recourse on the part of the employees; and
– Avoid liability if and when these delivery e-bikers have collisions and cause bodily injury or property damage – because the e-bikers are considered “independent contractors.”
Our city has spent millions of dollars to build bike lanes. This ends up supporting an industry that exploits people at the bottom rung of society by denying them the protections that come with W-2 employment status and subjecting them to sweatshop-type working conditions. That same industry extorts business owners by overcharging them on service fees for app-based food delivery orders. Then, after turning these e-bike drivers loose on the city – and creating slave-driving work conditions that lead the workers to be hurried, harried, and reckless in their biking habits – the food delivery app companies deny that they actually do employ these delivery people, and they absolve themselves of any responsibility for the carnage wrought by these crazed overworked bikers.
So, to sum up:
– Exploitative work conditions
– Fraudulent employment practices
– Creating dangerous conditions for the public
– Circumventing the tort liability system and leaving injured parties without recourse
– Bilking the public, by spending millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the construction of bike lanes that are used by nearly nobody else but the food delivery app companies.
And the city is an accomplice to each and every one of these awful things.
The city needs to investigate the exploitive and fraudulent employment practices of the food delivery app companies, shutting down organizations that do not comply with basic rules on workplace safety and fair employment practices.