City Isn’t Grappling With Bike, Scooter and Moped Problems
The writer was knocked down on a Greenwich Village street but says the NYPD failed to respond because she wasn’t a fatality. The city is failing to protect pedestrians, she says.
| 24 Jan 2025 | 04:15
Bikers this summer were caught going every which way in a one-way bike lane that crosses a pedestrian crosswalk on Ninth Avenue. The disregard of traffic laws is dangerous, says the writer, who was knocked down by a biker going through a light. (
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Bikers frequently go the wrong way down bike lanes and one-way streets. The writer was hit from behind by a wrong-way biker on Sixth Avenue recently. Cops would not take down an incident report, she said. (
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Bikes and pedestrians don’t mix well on Manhattan streets. (
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One recent evening, a friend and I left a Village theater, zipped up our coats against the cold and set off for the subway—never imagining that minutes later I would be knocked down by a cyclist speeding through a crosswalk, against the light.
In the cyclist’s telling, he’d entered the intersection planning to circle around us—but lost control of his bike. Ironically, we’d just been discussing the hazards of life in Mayor Adams’ New York City—a conversation prompted by an electric skateboard silently weaving in and out of clueless pedestrians on the sidewalk ahead of us. Still, it was a shock when I suddenly found myself laid out on the pavement, in pain, surrounded by helpful New Yorkers who’d come to the rescue.
Because he hit me from behind, I didn’t grasp what had happened until I saw the young man crouched at my side—and a bicycle on the ground beside him. Then I knew: I’d become one of thousands of New York pedestrians to be harmed by bicycles breaking the law.
I was a fortunate victim, in that my “assailant” owned his mistake and was eager to help. He obligingly shared contact info and apologized sincerely. He appeared genuinely concerned—and appropriately shaken. He promised, and I believed him, to be more careful in the future.
But the government entity that should have helped didn’t. When my friend called 911 and asked that police visit the scene to document the accident, she was told we should speak to the Emergency Medical Services instead. According to the operator, police respond to bike accidents only if there’s a fatality. If I’d had a fender-bender in a car, though, wouldn’t the police have arrived to take a report for insurance purposes? It’s concerning that a scratch on a fender is more important than an injured human sprawled on the street.
Perhaps this attitude is why New York City has failed to grapple with the epidemic of pedestrian accidents caused by bikes (and scooters, unicycles, skateboards and e-bikes) that ignore crosswalks, traffic lights, directionality on one-way streets or bike lanes—or even the age-old ban on bikes on sidewalks. If the police don’t collect data about the frequency and severity of these accidents, the extent of the problem remains unknown, and much-needed reforms aren’t adopted. I persistently phoned 911 once I’d returned home and tended my wounds, as I was determined that my accident be included in some database, somewhere. The next day, I finally located a policewoman who recommended filing an online Civilian Accident Report with the state. Even that experience was unsatisfactory; the state form isn’t designed for bike/pedestrian accidents—just accidents involving cars, or cars that hit bicycles. I did the best I could but can’t be certain that my report will be logged.
In the past five years, two women have died in bicycle/pedestrian accidents just blocks from my home, and a number of friends have been struck by bikes. Because of reporting failures, it’s hard to know how many others have been hit, and how badly they’ve been hurt. How many of these accidents have to occur before the city wakes up to the problem—and takes steps to document and control it?
And now, I need to turn off my computer, remove the heat packs from my throbbing back, the ice pack from my swollen and bruised arm, swallow two painkillers—and skedaddle to the imaging center for X-rays of my spine and ribs. We shouldn’t have to live like this.