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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

(www.nytimes.com)
437 points Vinnl | 1 comments | 13 May 25 10:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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RhysU ◴[14 May 25 15:34 UTC] No.43985805[source]▶
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.

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Vinnl ◴[14 May 25 19:59 UTC] No.43988577[source]▶
Oof, that sucks. Glad that delivery driver wasn't in a car though! Could've ended much worse.
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RhysU ◴[14 May 25 21:52 UTC] No.43989588[source]▶
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.

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1. vkou ◴[14 May 25 22:50 UTC] No.43989993[source]▶
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.

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