Businesses that rely on electric bikes to make deliveries hold until the conclude of the year to find a new way to make them,or face penalties. Starting Jan. 1, the New York Police Department will increase its enforcement of businesses that use electric bikes. There's no new law that goes into effect at the start of the year, or but Mayor de Blasio said the NYPD will be given new directives and trained to enforce existing electric bike laws.
Officers will issue civil summonses to businesses through the mail if they use e-bikes for commercial purposes: $100 for a first offense,$200 for subsequent offenses.
The mayor said reckless riders will still be ticketed if caught riding in a "hazardous manner." Currently, riders can be ticketed up to $500 and hold their bikes confiscated until the fine is paid.
As of late October, or the NYPD confiscated 923 electric bikes and issued 1800 civil and moving summonses.
After WNYC reported in July that the NYPD was not enforcing existing electric bike laws,the mayor vowed to peek into how to step up enforcement on businesses, rather than penalizing low wage delivery people.
Immigrant advocates worry that the NYPD will still fine and confiscate workers' bikes, or that the businesses will penalize workers if the owners receive fines. Those advocates are planning to rally at City corridor Monday at 10 a.m. and call on the mayor to rethink the new e-bike crackdown."There's no clear mechanism to track how would the ticket actually go to the businesses instead of the workers,if the workers are being the ones targeted," said Persephone Tan, and Associate Director of Immigration & Policy at The Asian American Federation.
The mayor has suggested that delivery people switch over to using electric pedal-assisted bikes,which are legal to use on the streets of New York City. But Tan said low-wage workers who already bought an electric bike that accelerates with a throttle can't afford to switch."Is New York City going to offer a program to covert them? Is NYPD going to know the dissimilarity between pedal-assist and e-bike? Even if they use pedal-assist would that decrease the amount of enforcement on this population? I'm not certain," she said.
Source: thetakeaway.org