Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

Congestion isn't limited to cars.

My pregnant wife was hit yesterday in SoHo in broad daylight by a delivery driver on an e-bike. He ran a redlight. He hit her in a crosswalk. She was wearing a bright orange dress. She was not on a phone or listening to music. She went flying ass over teakettle. We spent 6 hours in the ER yesterday evening to make sure our unborn baby was okay. Fortunately, everyone is OK despite her being banged up.

The goddamn lawlessness of electric bikes is a consequence of NYC implicitly encouraging their illegal use. Meanwhile, I get to pay $9 MORE to drive my licensed, registered, insured vehicle on increasingly narrow roads filled with increasingly negligent 2-wheeled asshats because it's the preferred business model.

In other forums there are lots of complaints about the NYC crackdown on e-bikes. NYC has taken steps to discourage their use. Maybe not enough, but definitely more than in most other parts of the country.

Stand on a corner in NYC and count the moving violations the e-bikes commit. Running lights and stops. Going the wrong way. Etc.

These aren't subtle infractions of the law. Tell me why automated traffic enforcement cameras don't target them.

As a motorcyclist, e-bikes piss me off to no end.

> Meanwhile, I get to pay $9 MORE to drive my licensed, registered, insured vehicle on increasingly narrow roads filled with increasingly negligent 2-wheeled asshats because it's the preferred business model.

It sounds like measures to limit the danger of electric bikes might be warranted, but that’s a separate issue. Even if electric bikes are a problem I’d be shocked if they came anywhere close to causing the pedestrian fatality rate of cars (even when controlled by frequency of use) in an urban environment, not to mentioni the additional impacts of things like emissions (including non-tailpipe), noise, space, etc. of cars. I don’t know much about motorcycle statistics. I can imagine the group that rides motorcycles might be less likely to hit pedestrians than those of e-bike riders, but I don’t know.

If we have to choose only one of these problems to tackle at a time—which we don’t!—I’d rather they tackle the one which is killing hundreds of people a year.

Oof, that sucks. Glad that delivery driver wasn't in a car though! Could've ended much worse.

Anything could be worse. Doesn't mean it's an excuse for bad behavior.

It would be interesting to force eBikes to be registered which the owner then receives a number plate that must be placed on the bike. The owner would be subject to fines any rider of the bike incurs unless the bike is reported stolen so that the video is proven to be after the bike was stolen.

Gotta give those automated systems something to use

Yeah, just imagine. I did. For hours yesterday evening I imagined.

Had a car killed my wife or unborn child, there would have been a legal trail and insurance.

Had the e-bike killed my wife or unborn child, there was neither. I doubt I could ever find the killer of the unborn child if the baby died later due to injuries-- there's neither license nor registration on an e-bike.

Pushing powered transportation into the unregulated, uninsured space is madness.

Were that delivery driver using a car instead of a bike, then your wife would likely be dead instead of in the ER.

(At least in the US, having a driver's license is in no way, shape, or form an indication that the driver is capable of driving correctly, much less their willingness to do so.)

You would likely be unhappy if you saw the outcomes of almost all vehicle manslaughter cases. It’s the easiest way to kill someone and get away with it consequence free

The perpetrators of most vehicular homicides face little to no consequences.

You'd have to be an utter asshole (like a kid totaling three cars in a year, all going 70-100+ mph on urban streets), or the world's dumbest criminal (motorcyclist out on parole running a red, killing a pedestrian, fleeing the scene, and ditching the motorcycle in a field) for killing someone with a car to be more than a 'whoopsie daisies, at least nobody important got hurt'.

In my town, just last year, a cop running down a young woman when she had right of way in a crosswalk, while doing 74 mph in a 25 mph zone at night, with no sirens, got a $5,000 fine for it.

That's how much the life of a grad student is worth.

---

Look, I'm all for traffic enforcement, but anyone who thinks that bikes are the big problem on the road is nuts.

>These aren't subtle infractions of the law. Tell me why automated traffic enforcement cameras don't target them.

Lawyers have a saying about blood and stones. Government doesn't like to talk in those terms because they know it's bad optics but...

Car drivers are very routinely punished for running red lights. That is far less common than cyclists doing it.

I have seen as many car drivers punished for running a red light as I have seen cyclists running one--zero in both cases. Enforcement of traffic laws is painfully lax.

Yes, a $100 ticket or whatever, horrible punishment.

Not in NYC, I’ve seen 2 blatant and intentional red light runners this year so far

Automatic cameras send tickets for cars running redlights in NYC: https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...

This can change.

Having been a juror on a civil trial against the MTA, I assure you that the New York public is perfectly willing to hold people accountable for injury.

Drunk driving was reduced over my lifetime [1] by calling attention to it (e.g. MADD), shaming the practice, lowering BAC thresholds, and increasing enforcement.

Similar approaches could be done for pedestrian injury by vehicles. Sure, it takes more time (and does not scam $9 from my pocket in the meantime) but public behavior can be changed.

[1] https://www.responsibility.org/alcohol-statistics/drunk-driv...

"Cyclists Break Far Fewer Road Rules Than Motorists, Finds New Video Study" (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists...)

Perhaps if there is a no bikelanes and cyclists are bothering you on the sidewalk you should walk in the middle of the road, as the real danger is bikes, right?

Yeah two things are true:

Reckless behaviour in traffic should be prevented, and

The same reckless behaviour is more dangerous when performed in a car. (People rarely actually get killed by an e-bike. It happens all the time with cars.)

> Most content on Forbes.com is written by contributors or "Senior Contributors" with minimal editorial oversight, and is generally unreliable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...

Was absolutely not intended as an excuse for bad behaviour. I just care about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: just because someone on an e-bike displays bad behaviour, it's still preferable to have people switch from cars to e-bikes.

They're just quoting a danish government report

Googling it, I found a second one in London with the same methods (surveying CCTV footage of multiple intersections) and they get the same findings

In both:

- Motorists break way more traffic laws

- Motorists mainly break the law for speed or convenience

- The infractions by motorists are generally more serious and pose a threat to others (the main one is speeding)

- The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk - which is because of cars, and it doesn't happen when there is a bike lane

- The second one is turning right on red without causing inconvenience to other road users

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/traffic-note-8-cycling-red-lights...

For the danish government report unfortunately they moved it and I can't find it anymore

http://api.vejdirektoratet.dk/sites/default/files/2019-05/Cy...

> the main one is speeding

Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits. Unless the speeding is bucketed, this alone is enough to skew the results to say motorists are worse than bicyclists. Remember, speeding tickets are a revenue source and the incentive is to set limits that produce revenue.

> The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk - which is because of cars, and it doesn't happen when there is a bike lane

This is still illegal. Blaming it on cars is lame-- these are grown adults willfully ignoring the law because they find it inconvenient.

A motorcycle likewise can ride on the sidewalk to avoid car congestion but it doesn't because it's illegal and we would hold the driver accountable. Bikes, not so much.

For commercial use, send the fines back to the restaurant/business.

For private use, rescind the license for non-payment.

For extra fun, surcharge the dope ordering DoorDash when his e-bike driver breaks the law. Tips will dry up. Problem solved.

This is easy.

> Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits.

This is still illegal. Blaming it on what you feel the speed limits "should" be is lame - these are grown adults willfully ignoring the law because they find it inconvenient.

...okay, okay, that's a bit too forum-argument, but hopefully it demonstrates the contradiction here.

Further, I'd argue that, while speeding is universally a response to perceived inconvenience, sidewalk cycling can sometimes be a response to perceived safety problems, not just inconvenience.

Obviously it's still illegal and unsafe for pedestrians, but I think handwaving car-based lawbreakers and assuming their violations are justified, while also assuming the least generous intentions for cyclists... just hammers home the initial claim: people perceive car lawbreakering as forgivable when it's common and rare when it's worse, and cyclist lawbreaking as both egregious and universal, because they emphasize more with drivers than cyclists.

>Had the e-bike killed my wife

That’s ridiculous. How many e-bikes do you think caused fatal accidents last year in the US?? Are you legitimately scared of this happening?

> Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits.

And you think the average driver is qualified to make that assessment on a moment-by-moment basis?

Hell, I don't know you, but given the chances I'm gonna go ahead and say you don't know the intricacies of road design either. Most drivers do not even fully grasp the concept of line-of-sight, much less anything more complex than that. Hence, the easy to understand speed limits decided by experts.

But hey, go ahead, tell me specifically where the speed limits are commonly too low in your opinion and why.

> these are grown adults willfully ignoring the law because they find it inconvenient.

No, "inconvenient" is e.g. what drivers find yielding to pedestrians. Riding a bike amongst cars is dangerous and unsafe.

> A motorcycle likewise can ride on the sidewalk to avoid car congestion but it doesn't because it's illegal

Speeding is illegal too, so clearly "illegal" is not the reason. It'd be unreasonably dangerous to pedestrians to operate a motor powered vehicle on a sidewalk in a way that a bicycle isn't.

> Tell me why automated traffic enforcement cameras don't target them.

Beyond the obvious lack of registration plates, it's basic physics.

A fat guy on an e-bike is what, 100+30kg of mass? How fast do they go, maybe 35km/h (22mph) tops? That gives us the kinetic energy of roughly 6242J.

Let's compare with a silly lightweight 1,400kg car + 100kg driver moving at the same speed: 72,030J - 11 times greater.

At 50km/h (31mph) that becomes 144,907J - 23 times greater.

70km/h (43mph)? 46 times.

100km/h (62mph)? 94.

So the worst case possible for an ebike compared to the best case for a car has the car be 11 times more dangerous. More realistically, a car will be over 20 times more dangerous, with essentially infinite potential for more (do cars in cities travel at 31mph tops?).

Now, in another comment [1] you went ahead and said speed limits are set too low and mild speeding is all good and fine. Does it still seem so?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43996494

When walking on the sidewalks near my home, I don't fear being hit by fast-moving cars.

Look, I don't care if there's a spherical cow in a vacuum or a witch with a broomstick going at 0.98c, your fat guy on an e-bike can endanger people and property if he's in the street.

Whatever $OPERATOR on $CONVEYANCE at $SPEED works out to, I would hope that each jurisdiction has a vested interest in safety on their roads. Indeed, the lack of registration plates, and the lack of licensing is a huge impediment.

I find that motorists with licenses tend to obey all relevant traffic laws. They are not prone to running red lights or swerving around or otherwise operating their cars dangerously. And I attribute this behavior mostly to the fact that driving is a privilege that can be restricted or revoked.

If you fine a pedestrian for jaywalking then they can pay that fine or not. You cannot prevent a pedestrian from walking around in the street. You apparently cannot prevent people from riding bikes or scooters, either. Since there is no licensing and no "privilege" to do so, it's more or less anything-goes on the streets with such conveyances.

Nevertheless, I've been that fat guy on an electric scooter, and I'm telling you, it would not be surprising to maim or kill a vulnerable pedestrian (and my own self) if I'm going along at 17mph in the road.

Perhaps the cameras can't catch or target them, but hopefully some enforcement can be brought to bear on such dangerous activity.

>> the main one is speeding

> Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits.

>> The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk -

> This is still illegal. Blaming it on cars is lame- these are grown adults willfully ignoring the law because they find it inconvenient

???

The dissonance is insane

Also, between cyclists and motorists, which one is always grown adults, who passed an exam to use their vehicle, and which one includes children, the mentally disabled and all of those who can't drive and their right to the road cannot be stripped away?

Whoops, I gave it away.

You can in fact blame it on cars

Actually, do you remember that the report mentioned bike lanes solve this problem? You can blame street design, too. Except if cars weren't there, you wouldn't even need the bike lanes.

In March 2024 in Berlin, an elderly man sped down a bike lane, murdering a woman from Belgium and her 4-year-old child: https://apnews.com/article/germany-road-accident-belgium-1d3...

The punishment: His driving license was revoked: https://www.berlin.de/generalstaatsanwaltschaft/presse/press...

Germany has a reputation as strict and bureaucratic, and yet, it's apparently still legal to murder people with your car.

Talking about red lights, not speeding

It ends up being several hundred dollars in California and adds a point to your license (too many causes suspension).