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New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

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11–20 of 45 posts

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#11
post #5
post #3

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.

Many drivers are reckless and break laws consistently. They also often don't share the road with bikes very well. We don't ban them.

Why would we? Asking motor vehicle drivers to "share the road" with bicycle riders is asinine, destined to fail, and uniquely American.

And I say this having grown up my entire life without a car, biking everywhere. I'd take tickets for riding on the sidewalk, and I'll do it every single day I ride. Sharing a road with 2500lb vehicles that go 2-5x my speed is unsafe and all the talking and lane marking in the world will never undo that fact. Nevermind how utterly anti-social and rude you must be to bike in a lane 20mph under the speed limit.

I spend as much time as possible in the Netherlands since they seem to be about the only sane country when it comes to mixed-mode transportation and not trying to murder people while doing so.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#12
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 :)

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#13
post #4
post #3

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.

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

Yes, this. The problem isn’t ebikes or bikes, it’s dangerous riding.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#14
post #4
post #3

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.

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

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.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#15
post #3

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.

We don't ban cars. Yet most drivers break laws daily, whether it be failure to signal, exceeding the posted speed limit, or blocking a crosswalk or intersection. No one talks about banning cars outright, even though they kill far more innocent bystanders. If there are dangerous ebike operators they should be ticketed and fined. In a world with global warming where many cities stated goal is to reduce vehicle miles tr…

"We don't ban cars. Yet most drivers break laws daily..." Your explanation is in your own statement. The cars aren't breaking the laws. The drivers are. They are penalized for breaking laws, and if they continue or break a law serious enough, they will be banned from driving.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#16
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?

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people have they killed this year? Just two days Dorothy Bruns in Park Slope ran through a red light, killed a four year old and a one year old. A pregnant woman is still in critical condition. She hasn't been arrested. Maybe the NYPD should concentrate on felonies before worrying about violations.

The “how many people have been killed” is a really poor test of if something is right or wrong.

As long as an alternative is regularly killing people, it seems like a decent test to me.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#18
post #11
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many drivers are reckless and break laws consistently. They also often don't share the road with bikes very well. We don't ban them.

Why would we? Asking motor vehicle drivers to "share the road" with bicycle riders is asinine, destined to fail, and uniquely American. And I say this having grown up my entire life without a car, biking everywhere. I'd take tickets for riding on the sidewalk, and I'll do it every single day I ride. Sharing a road with 2500lb vehicles that go 2-5x my speed is unsafe and all the talking and lane marking in the world w…

> Asking motor vehicle drivers to "share the road" with bicycle riders is asinine, destined to fail, and uniquely American.

It isn't uniquely American. There's no need to make over the top claims. It undermines your points.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#19
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.

Re: New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One

#20
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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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