A delivery driver on a motorized e-bike makes his way across the intersection of 9th Street and 4th Avenue in Park Slope. The cyclist crossed through a red light, disobeying traffic laws, an issue that the Park Slope Civic Council noted in their survey of bike lane safety.
Photo: Daniel Cody/Brooklyn Eagle
“The bikers may be winning, but someone at some point had better institute fines to them for breaking traffic laws. It’s no wonder bikers are hurt or killed. They do not obey traffic laws,” wrote commenter Cindy under an article about expanding bike lanes in New York City.
Cindy is not alone in her thinking, the Park Slope Civic Council with help from Good Neighbors of Park Slope, conducted a survey of how well cyclists follow traffic laws in the Park Slope area.
Prior to their survey, they could find no other research into pedestrian safety around e-bikes in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, they found that of the two-wheeled vehicles surveyed — whether on e-bikes, human-powered bicycles, scooters, or mopeds — 65% ran red lights, and a notable number put pedestrians at risk by not following other bicycle traffic laws.
While the Park Slope Civic Council supports e-micromobility (transportation using lightweight electric vehicles such as e-bikes or e-scooters) for its environmental, economic, and accessibility benefits, the results of the survey provided an overview of obstacles in the streets that threaten pedestrian safety.
Photo: Daniel Cody/Brooklyn Eagle
NJ Smith, a commuting cyclist, relayed his experience: “All of a sudden [mopeds] will come from behind you and fly past you going like 20 or 30 miles an hour. It just makes you stop and wonder if they should be in a traffic lane and not in a bike lane.” Mopeds are considered licensed vehicles and therefore illegal to operate in bike lanes. But that doesn’t stop moped drivers from using bike lanes — or…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply