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.

> 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