Mamdani and Albany need to face the deadly E-bike menace NOW
E-bike crashes have killed 133 people in New York City since 2019, but only now are a few progressive pols admitting the deadly danger — and of course their “solution” is pathetic.
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They’re scrambling after the death of a 17-year-old kid, but pretending it’s a matter of better consumer information, which they’re calling on state Attorney General Tish James to mandate.
Nonsense: The obvious answers are stronger policing, as under Mayor Eric Adams, and smarter laws, as former City Councilman Robert Holden demanded in vain.
To her credit, Speaker Julie Menin is looking to tighten local laws, but the Legislature is the one that most needs to act, by requiring e-bike registration and e-rider licensing.
And Mayor Zohran Mamdani should rescind his March directive that neutered NYPD e-bike enforcement, stopping cops from issuing criminal summonses for e-bike riders and cyclists for low-level traffic offenses.
Police aren’t even much ticketing blatant violations like riding the motorized vehicles on sidewalks and in the wrong direction on streets, or failing to stop at traffic lights and stop signs.
It’s nuts: E-bikes are heavier and faster than regular bikes (some hit even 40 miles per hour); on top of the deaths, they’ve injured over 17,000 people in the city since 2019, including more than 1,500 pedestrians.
Yet advocacy groups, notably Transportation Alternatives, have managed to block any controls, another triumph of ideology over common sense.
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Cities across the nation are seeing a rise in e-bike crashes, and ER docs say they’re treating a growing number of related injuries.
The recent e-bike death of a New Jersey teen just led the Garden State to require e-bikes to be registered and riders to be at least age 15 and have either a valid driver’s license or an e-bike license.
Surely Albany can match that — if lawmakers can bother to return for a special legislative session.
They’ve sat too long on Priscilla’s Law, named after woman killed by a Chinatown e-bike, which would require licensing, registration and visible license plates for e-bikes and e-scooters — that last making it easier to keep illegal, overpowered ones off the streets.
After the first-ever death in a horse-carriage accident, progressives are clamoring to shut down that entire industry; surely they can get a least a little tough on the outright menace of e-bikes.
Mamdani should get real today; the Legislature, as soon as possible: If they don’t act, the next e-bike death is on them.
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