On Friday I mentioned the death of comedian Kenny DeForest:
While outlets initially reported his death as the result of a hit-and-run, it now appears as though he was riding an electric Citi Bike and crashed into an unoccupied parked car, and headlines changed accordingly:
These circumstances don’t make is death any less tragic, nor do they mean we can just say, “Oh, well, he crashed into a parked car, everything’s just fine.” Not only do drivers still hit people all the time, but there are all sorts of reasons something like this might happen with or without their help–rider distraction, poor road surface, close pass by a driver, etc.–and it’s also something that could happen to any one of us no matter how expert we think we may be.
Naturally though, now that the story has been updated, the discourse has shifted from “Drivers are too dangerous!” to “E-bikes are too dangerous!,” as in this article in the Daily News:
It’s for subscribers only, but all you really need to read is this:
And this:
The story generated plenty of chatter on the social medias (though what doesn’t?) with various people suggesting e-bikes are particularly dangerous because they go faster (true) and their riders are inexperienced (tempting, possibly even true, but mostly conjecture).
Now I certainly admit when I see that out of 28 cyclists killed in 2023 so far 21 were riding an e-bike I too am tempted to impugn them and wish them away. Yes, I am prejudiced against e-bikes. As a cyclist, I don’t like the increased speed in the bike lanes, I don’t like the wildly disparate shapes, sizes, and rates of acceleration, and I don’t like the fact that they’ve taken the most efficient mode of transportation in the world and put a giant battery on it.
At the same time, obviously lots of other people do like them, and I understand it doesn’t really matter what I like or don’t like. I also understand that people draw conclusions that are convenient to them. When e-scooters first appeared media doctors were freaking out about them because they didn’t have the coronavirus to freak out about yet:
This was based in part on people showing up in the hospital with scooter injuries, which…well of course they were. The e-scooter went from not existing at all to being all over the place, and obviously some people are bound to fall off of them. Plus, as with bikes, doctors only see the scooter riders who gets hurt; nobody pops into the hospital just to let everyone know they’re okay and are having a great time. If the shower had only been invented in 2018 it would seem like the most deadly invention in the history of humanity and curmudgeons would be furious that people no longer bathe by sitting in a washtub.
And yet…e-scooters never really fulfilled their promise, either, not by a long shot. As with e-bikes, scooters were (and still are) supposed to replace car trips:
And yet driving continues to increase:
Basically, if you love this stuff you think it’s going to save the world, and if you hate it you think it’s going to kill everybody, but the truth is probably more prosaic. Yes, there are people for whom this technology may be transformative (or at least very convenient), and yes, there are also “negative externalities” (that’s smug for “annoying shit”) that comes with it, but ultimately e-bikes and e-scooters are just another convenient annoyance an/or annoying convenience–more additions to the ganglion of lines on all those graphs.
As for e-bikes being more dangerous, 21 out of 28 deaths sounds really bad, but it really doesn’t tell you all that much since who knows how many total bike trips in New York City now involve e-bikes in the first place? They do the same thing with helmets:
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I suspect most people riding bicycles in New York City aren’t wearing helmets, so of course if you hit a cyclist with your car here it’s highly likely they won’t be wearing one. Furthermore, the riders who are wearing them tend to be more experienced. And alcohol can also be a factor in cycling deaths:
The helmeted roadie is almost certainly sober and helmeted, whereas the tipsy person riding home at night is almost certainly not. In this case the real problem is impairment, and the presence or absence of a helmet is incidental.
There are also way more people on bikes both electric and analog in New York City now than there were when the death statistics looked like this and e-bikes weren’t even a thing yet:
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See?
Given the huge increase in cycling numbers it sure looks like it’s much safer in New York City now (at least in the context of dying or not dying), and that’s even factoring in the presence of the e-bikes.
So yes, I have a lot of problems with e-bikes:
I think people in New York City tend to ride too fast even on regular bikes, so the motors ain’t helping. I see people on electric Citi Bike do dumb shit all the time; you’d think they would yield once in awhile since it’s so much easier to get going again, but instead the effortless speed seems to compel them to ride right into pedestrians and busy intersections. And I’m willing to believe that there are a not-insignificant number of inexperienced people riding around on electric bikes with more power than they’re able to handle.
But where I’d stop short is looking at a few scary numbers and drawing a conclusion. It’s naive that to think if those 21 e-bike deaths hadn’t happened we’d only have seen seven cycling deaths this year. It’s also possible that the sheer number of e-bikes is making even us analog cyclists safer thanks to the “safety in numbers” effect, who knows? There’s also a big difference between one idiot on an electric Citi Bike (I’m not referring to DeForest here, I’m referring to the many idiots I do see on them) and someone on a cargo bike where the motor is simply allowing them to more easily travel at the speed of a normal bicycle. I think advocates need to stop pretending e-bikes will save the world and get serous about the problems they present, and I also think all the people pushing for e-bike registration and all the rest of it are similarly delusional since the city couldn’t legislate itself out of a Twinkie wrapper.
But really, the only conclusion I’m ready to draw is that it’s important to be wary of things that are too easy. In fact, wanting things to be easy is what got us into this whole e-bike mess in the first place.