Revel with a cause

Awary welcome back to Revel, whose 3,000 zippy, light blue pay-by-the-minute mopeds have returned to the streets with City Hall’s permission a month after three rider fatalities prompted the brand to suspend service. Revel’s new safety measures seem sensible: A 20-minute training video and must-pass quiz; a mandate that riders snap a selfie of themselves wearing helmets before they can scoot; more vigorous technological monitoring of rule-breaking, and a promise to encourage tattling on sidewalk riding or ignoring red lights or one-way streets.

A few months should show whether those make a real difference in preventing accidents and deaths here. The three 2020 fatalities involved either un-helmeted or inexperienced riders or both.

But nothing here is cheat-proof: Helmet selfie requirements won’t prevent reckless riders doffing headgear right after they snap the photo. The company’s enforcement promises are faith-based. And community reporting is easier encouraged than done in practice. The startup ought to consider rewards for anyone who files legitimate complaints.

If fatalities continue, Albany will have to ask why people with regular driver’s licenses alone and no specialized licenses are allowed to operate these vehicles, as they currently are under New York law. Slightly faster mopeds — ones that go 31 mph instead of topping out at 30, as Revels do — require specific training.

Much is riding on the experiment: not just the scooter company’s prospects, but also New York City’s willingness to try other newfangled mobility options as we adapt to a transit ecosystem radically reshaped by COVID-19.