
New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One - mmel
https://www.fastcompany.com/40537103/new-york-is-confiscating-delivery-bikes-hurting-immigrants-and-helping-no-one
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ramzyo
I’m sorry but I just can’t line up my daily observations of some bikers’ and
ebikers’ dangerous behavior in NYC vs that of drivers (who admittedly I have
also seen drive dangerously) and the data often cited showing that drivers
break just as many laws.

Call this some fallacy of observation or confirmation bias or whatever, but I
see bikers biking the wrong way weaving between traffic on NYC streets,
running red lights (generally when there are no cars, but hey, it’s still
running a red light), and doing other dangerous-for-pedestrian things
literally every time I go outside. A few months ago I was clipped by a biker
going the wrong way through a red light as I was in the crosswalk. Almost a
year ago a friend was hit full speed by a biker in the East Village and lost
two teeth.

Of course a car hitting a pedestrian will be worse for the pedestrian than a
bike in the same situation. But many bikers are dangerous too, at least in
NYC, and when I walk the streets I’m more afraid of a biker coming out of
nowhere than I am of a car doing the same.

I have a hard time understanding the knee-jerk reaction to marginialize how
dangerous bikers can be when an article calls out this behavior. There’s
always some counter argument about how dangerous cars are. They are both
dangerous, now can we just admit this and start asking cities to police
dangerous biking too?

~~~
dpark
> * and the data often cited showing that drivers break just as many laws.*

I’m also doubtful and suspect that the data is essentially cherry picked.
Relative to distance travelled, I suspect cyclists do indeed break traffic
laws more frequently. Especially if “severity” of violation is accounted for.

i.e. There’s often some jackass in a car who runs the red light shortly after
it changes. However, despite the blatant law violation, it’s not _that_
dangerous because it happens immediately after the light change and for better
or worse, people expect it. Cyclists on the other hand will often blow through
a light whenever they get there if they think they can make it through without
getting hit, whether that’s right after the light changes or two minutes
later. The car running the red light immediately after it changes is quite
frequent but the cyclist running the light whenever it’s convenient is more
egregious even if less frequent.

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yogi123
I’m wondering how many commenters here actually live in NYC. Delivery bikes
are a menace. A 20-something guy in my building recently started hopping
around on crutches. Athletic guy. Got hit by a food delivery bike and
fractured his leg. I have a near miss at least once a week. They’re like darts
that pop out of nowhere even on sidewalks, at full speed, sometimes swerving
at the last second. Zero respect for any traffic laws. It’s especiaily
dangerous if you have a dog as I do, esp when crossing a street, bc a bike can
slice into the leash in the space between you and your dog, since the bikes
pop out of nowhere so fast. I’m exceedingly cautious at night now in scanning
around me at crosswalks.

~~~
t2riRXawYxLGGYb
I live in NYC and I bike every day. I have no problem with e-bikes and I think
the fact that they are getting confiscated is extremely misguided given that
they are receiving praise in many other cities as a smart alternative to cars.
It's insane that the police in NYC are so concerned about these bikes killing
people meanwhile there are dozens of bicyclists dying every year due to car
accidents and virtually no bicycle-related pedestrian deaths. Biking is by far
the most dangerous thing I ever do by an order of magnitude; I've almost been
crushed by cars multiple times, I've actually been brushed by cars a couple of
times, and multiple friends of mine have been hurt. I'm considering stopping
biking because of this, but the truth is that it is so much faster than taking
the train or walking that my morning commute from Greenpoint to LES would not
really make much sense without a bike. I find it ironic that police are
notorious for parking in bike lanes causing bikes to have to veer out into
traffic to get around them, which is extremely dangerous. (See
[http://copsinbikelanes.tumblr.com/](http://copsinbikelanes.tumblr.com/))

I understand that bikes are more concerning than cars for pedestrians due to
being quiet and going the wrong way, and I hate as much as the next guy. It is
bicyclists' responsibility to obey traffic laws. It seems that the police
should enforce the laws against these e-bikes going the wrong way or not
stopping at stop signs, not for existing in the first place.

~~~
JBlue42
>I understand that bikes are more concerning than cars for pedestrians due to
being quiet and going the wrong way, and I hate as much as the next guy.

We seem to be very against bells in the US.

~~~
CalRobert
When I tell folks in the US my bike has a bell they say "psssh like a car will
hear that" they always seem surprised when I point out it's more of a polite
alert to people walking. Because who walks, after all?

Also without the constant deadening roar of internal combustion, bells are
fairly audible.

~~~
JBlue42
That's interesting. I always assumed it was because of social perception here
in the US that bells on bikes were for kids.

The background soundtrack of my time spent in Amsterdam and Copenhagen is that
have bike bells ringing.

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vevoo
I love bikes and bikers, but think that the kind of freedom some of us exhibit
is dangerous. We should abide more by the rules for bikes, as we expected the
car drivers to abide by their own rules.

If when we bike we break the rules, we might generate dangerous situations for
pedestrians, for ourselves and for cars. It took me while to realize this.

On the other side, if the rules are inappropriate, then yes, we have to
bargain for new rules. But the article did not added anything about this. God
thanks I do not need to register my bike and get a plate!

But we might need to develop a test to get a e-bike license :)

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pfarnsworth
I love how they're making it an "immigrant" issue and the gig-economy
companies are "abdicating responsibility". Meanwhile actual residents of NYC
are vehemently against how reckless and dangerous these people are. It's a
good example of how agendas in the media have gotten out of control.

~~~
masonic
I don't think their narrative is helped by featuring someone who immigrated
_16 years ago_ yet still doesn't speak English either.

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skybrian
If delivery using cyclists is unsafe and they should slow down, it seems like
the city has to go after the businesses that provide the incentive to speed.

Maybe enforce a minimum elapsed time and price for a delivery? If they get
there sooner, they have to wait for the next job.

~~~
dpark
In that case they’d simply carry multiple deliveries. And no one is going to
support the “delivery food must be cold” ordinance anyway.

I honestly applaud looking for more fruitful and effective areas to regulate,
but in this case, I don’t think you found the appropriate target.

~~~
skybrian
Of course it's never going to be that simple, but it seems like you have start
with incentives if you're ever going to get anywhere. Services like GrubHub
gather lots of data and it _could_ be used to improve safety, but apparently
isn't?

Maybe make the services partially liable for any accidents, and they'll make
some changes in their routing?

~~~
dpark
The incentives need to be useful though. Realistically it’s Google doing the
routing anyway and cyclists ignore it when they know a faster path. GrubHub
cannot reasonably fix that unless they’re going to fine delivery workers when
they deviate from the route, which seems absurd given that delivery workers
will legitimately deviate for faster routes that are equally safe.

Making GrubHub liable for accidents also doesn’t do much. Accidents are
relatively uncommon anyway and it’s probably very affordable to just eat the
cost. Plus I’m not sure how GrubHub would force safer cycling even if they
were incentivized to do so.

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bobcat9
Those electric bikes are a nightmare. They are so quiet you can't hear them
coming. Coupled with how recklessly the delivery guys ride them it's a recipe
for disaster. These guys plow through red lights and gun it in the opposite
direction on one way streets. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem if these guys
didn't ride like assholes.

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reustle
So they should ticket dangerous riders, not ban e-bikes outright.

~~~
musgrove
You're dealing with an administration that similarly believes guns kill
people, not that the people that use the guns to kill people are responsible.

~~~
Arbalest
People use guns to kill people. Sure. This would be a valid argument if the US
didn't have a gun culture as well as guns.

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t2riRXawYxLGGYb
In case you find these confiscations as misguided as I do, it looks like there
is an existing petition against this: [https://www.change.org/p/legalize-
class-i-pedal-assist-elect...](https://www.change.org/p/legalize-class-i-
pedal-assist-electric-bicycles-in-new-york-state)

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Arbalest
As much as I don't like to malign modes of transportation which are
environmentally friendly, cases like this are exactly why regulation is
introduced. Once you get large numbers of people getting away with borderline
criminal behaviour, regulation is brought in to explicitly deal with it to
deal with the now commonly occurring edge cases.

Of course corporate entities don't want it, they tend to be pro-deregulation.
So injuries have been downplayed because, as others have said, they are not
deaths.

This could perhaps be handled by requiring registration of all vehicles for
commercial purposes, as they are usually under the most pressure to increase
throughput and thus bend rules. This would deal with the issue of unfairly
disadvantaging the poor who need the economy afforded by bike transport, while
dealing with the exploitation of the lack of regulation by corporate entities.

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alvah
"..calling them a public threat because their riders exceed speed limits and
disobey traffic laws by riding the wrong way on streets and on sidewalks. This
reasoning is faulty: Do Lee, a researcher at CUNY Graduate Center and
organizer with The Biking Public Project, which works to amplify the voices of
underrepresented cyclists like delivery workers, tells Fast Company he has
found no evidence in his research that e-bikes have ever killed anyone.."

The reasoning contained in this excerpt is faulty, and it's so glaring I'm
surprised the editor let it through - hasn't killed anyone yet <> is a public
threat!

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DrScump

      given that immigrant delivery workers tend to earn only around $10/hour
    

That's below NYC minimum wage.

~~~
elp
As someone who doesn't live in the USA I've always wondered: NYC (heavily
DNC?) routinely seems to do things that are far more inhuman and racist than
anything the GOP does, how come it never generates the same level of outcry?

~~~
DrScump

      NYC routinely seems to do things
    

Are you blaming _city government_ rather than crooked employers?

~~~
elp
Employers will try get away with whatever they can. Why is the city not
enforcing the law?

