DOT kicks off e-bike safety campaign after deadly year
The city Department of Transportation is set to announce a new e-bike safety campaign Tuesday, following a particularly deadly year for the devices — and one day after a fatal e-bike crash in Harlem.
“With bicycle ridership reaching historic levels, we must use every tool available to give new and experienced cyclists the resources they need to bike safely,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in a statement, “whether it’s building new protected bike lanes or educating New Yorkers these crucial skills on-the-ground.”
The DOT’s $1 million ad campaign, based around the tagline, “Get smart before you start,” is targeted at new and inexperienced e-cyclists, whom DOT officials say may be unfamiliar with safe operation of e-bikes.
The ads will appear in print, on subways, TV, radio and social media, and will be written in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Bangla and Creole.
In addition to reminding e-bike riders to follow traffic laws and stay off the sidewalk, the campaign focuses on two facets unique to electric mobility devices — their quick acceleration and their weight.
“Be prepared for the quick acceleration of e-bikes — and the not-so-quick braking,” says a narrator in a video ad commissioned by the DOT.
“Take it easy with e-bikes,” reads a print ad, “They accelerate fast.”
Most legal e-bikes are limited to a 20 mph top speed. Electric Citi Bikes are slower, topping out at 18 mph.
The fastest and most powerful e-bikes, known in the industry as “Class 3” bikes, are allowed to travel up to 25 mph on New York City’s streets and bike lanes — though many are capable of traveling faster.
The ads reviewed by the Daily News do not tell riders to wear helmets. Helmets are not required by city law, unless an e-bike is being ridden for commercial purposes, like delivery work, or is one of the faster “Class 3” machines.
More than three times as many people died while riding e-bikes in New York City last year than died on traditional, pedal-powered bicycles, according to city data, with 23 people killed on e-bikes and seven on traditional cycles.
Seven of those crashes were so-called “solo collisions,” a crash which does not involve another moving vehicle, but instead is due to a loss of control or a crash into a stationary object.
So far this year, four people have been killed on e-bikes, while one person has been killed riding a traditional bike.
Most recently, 31-year-old Washington Heights resident Sezar Morales Linarez was killed Monday when he lost control of his e-bike at W. 122nd St. and Manhattan Ave. in Harlem.
Linarez was headed north on Manhattan Ave. shortly after 6 a.m. when the two-way street became a one-way, southbound road at W. 122nd St.
Cops said Linarez tried to ride up on the sidewalk to avoid oncoming traffic before losing control of the e-bike.
He fell onto the street where he was hit by a passing box truck. He was declared dead at Mount Sinai hospital.
DOT officials said the ad campaign is one step in a multipronged approach to e-bike safety, which includes the widening of bike lanes to allow speedier e-bikes to pass slower traditional bicycles without having to veer into car traffic.
Such lanes have already been added to Third, Ninth and 10th Aves. in Manhattan, and are part of a planned overhaul of the bike lane on Second Ave.