New York Is Confiscating Delivery Bikes, Hurting Immigrants, And Helping No One • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by pulisse » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

elp wrote: post #35

DrScump wrote: post #33

given that immigrant delivery workers tend to earn only around $10/hour That's below NYC minimum wage.

As someone who doesn't live in the USA I've always wondered: NYC (heavily DNC?) routinely seems to do things that are far more inhuman and racist than anything the GOP does, how come it never generates the same level of outcry?

The mayor of New York was a Republican from 1994 to 2014. If your impression about city policies were accurate, that would not count against the Democratic party in the way you seem to imply.

But I don't think your impression about the city is all that accurate to begin with. New York being the largest and highest profile US city, you hear more news about it than about other parts of the US, but you shouldn't be drawing inferences about the rest of US from the absence of news that reaches you.

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

#42

Post by jdavis703 » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

musgrove wrote: post #15

jdavis703 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is actually a legitimate critique of what I wrote. Vehicle operators, from ebikes riders to motorists need to be the ones blamed for crashes and other bad behaviors. That said, my post is advocating for the same treatment of bikers as drivers. The government doesn't generally seize cars (unless it's blocking traffic or parking), the same process should be applied to bikes.

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

#43

Post by dpark » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 2:28 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #34

dpark wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case they’d simply carry multiple deliveries. And no one is going to support the “delivery food must be cold” ordinance anyway. I honestly applaud looking for more fruitful and effective areas to regulate, but in this case, I don’t think you found the appropriate target.

Of course it's never going to be that simple, but it seems like you have start with incentives if you're ever going to get anywhere. Services like GrubHub gather lots of data and it could be used to improve safety, but apparently isn't? Maybe make the services partially liable for any accidents, and they'll make some changes in their routing?

The incentives need to be useful though. Realistically it’s Google doing the routing anyway and cyclists ignore it when they know a faster path. GrubHub cannot reasonably fix that unless they’re going to fine delivery workers when they deviate from the route, which seems absurd given that delivery workers will legitimately deviate for faster routes that are equally safe.

Making GrubHub liable for accidents also doesn’t do much. Accidents are relatively uncommon anyway and it’s probably very affordable to just eat the cost. Plus I’m not sure how GrubHub would force safer cycling even if they were incentivized to do so.

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

#44

Post by JBlue42 » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 2:42 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #40

JBlue42 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I understand that bikes are more concerning than cars for pedestrians due to being quiet and going the wrong way, and I hate as much as the next guy. We seem to be very against bells in the US.

When I tell folks in the US my bike has a bell they say "psssh like a car will hear that" they always seem surprised when I point out it's more of a polite alert to people walking. Because who walks, after all? Also without the constant deadening roar of internal combustion, bells are fairly audible.

That's interesting. I always assumed it was because of social perception here in the US that bells on bikes were for kids.

The background soundtrack of my time spent in Amsterdam and Copenhagen is that have bike bells ringing.

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

#45

Post by DoreenMichele » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #40

JBlue42 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I understand that bikes are more concerning than cars for pedestrians due to being quiet and going the wrong way, and I hate as much as the next guy. We seem to be very against bells in the US.

When I tell folks in the US my bike has a bell they say "psssh like a car will hear that" they always seem surprised when I point out it's more of a polite alert to people walking. Because who walks, after all? Also without the constant deadening roar of internal combustion, bells are fairly audible.

I mostly walk. Most cyclists either give no warning or they yell something like "On your left".

I would be thrilled if bells were in common usage.