Revel mopeds 69 times deadlier than Citi Bikes, commish warns
The zippy Revel mopeds that have hit city streets over the last two years are drastically more dangerous than Citi Bikes, Transportation Department Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said Tuesday.
The Vespa-style scooters have been involved in four deadly crashes since July, including one on Sept. 29 that killed an 82-year-old woman near Columbus Circle.
Since Citi Bike launched in 2013, the bikes have been involved in just two fatal crashes, Department of Transportation data shows.
Trottenberg pointed out in a City Council Transportation Committee hearing that Revel has seen 1.38 fatalities per million trips, or 69 times the 0.02 fatalities per million trips reported on Citi Bikes.
“Revel service can offer several benefits to the city,” said Trottenberg. “But there’s no escaping the fact that moped share is in a different risk category than bike share.”
City Council members are considering legislation that would require the city Transportation Department to establish and enforce safety protocols for moped sharing services like Revel.
City officials temporarily suspended Revel service on July 28 after two riders were killed — including WCBS/Channel 2 reporter Nina Kapur, who was passenger on a Revel moped in Brooklyn.
One more man died after the service shut down from injuries caused by a Revel crash on July 25.
The mopeds returned to streets a month later with new safety features, including mandatory safety training on the company’s smartphone app and a requirement for riders to take a selfie with a helmet before driving.
When Revel relaunched, the company agreed to shut down its scooters overnight from midnight to 5 a.m., hours Transportation Department officials said were riskiest for riders.
Will Carry, senior director for special projects at the Transportation Department, said late-night driving, inexperienced riders and riders losing control of the scooters have been the “primary factors” that have led to crashes on Revels.
Revel scooters, which are rented by the minute, are fully electric and are manufactured by the Chinese company Niu.
The company launched in a small section of Brooklyn in 2018, and expanded to larger areas of Brooklyn and Queens in 2019 before adding service areas in the Bronx and Manhattan this year.
Revel CEO Frank Reig said during the hearing that the spate of deaths on the company’s mopeds this summer was a part of a larger trend in the city.
“When quarantine was lifted this summer we saw a rash of reckless driving across all modes in New York City,” said Reig. “The abrupt and extreme change in driver behavior was unprecedented, and just as DOT and law enforcement faced this challenge, so did us at Revel.”