Repeal of Criminal Summonses for Bikes Stirs Controversy

As of March 27, bikers and e-bikers will no longer face criminal summons for traffic infractions.

The bike lobby was rejoicing while many injured in past accidents with e-bikes and pedal bikes worry the city will be less safe for pedestrians.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani reversed last year’s controversila move by Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to curb outlaw bikers by elevating the penalty for things like running a red light, failing to stop at a stop sign, driving the wrong way on a one way street or driving on a sidewalk into a criminal sumons. Under that tougher standard, anyone caught would have to face a civil court judge in person to enter a plea. He said he was going to push for a slew of new regulations and laws to make the streets safer.

But there were plenty of critics of the relaxed enforcement, particulary people who had been injured in the past. And a random check by Straus News on the East Side and West Side of the city in the days after the relaxed standards took place had one third to one half of e-bikes rountinely ignoring traiffic regulations.

“Mayor Mamdani is putting countless New Yorkers at risk with change to e-bike rules— “I know because I was critically hurt by one,” stated Doree Lewak who wrote a first person account in the New York Post when the law was repealed.

“Hell on wheels now has no limit,” Lewar said. “At least no speed limit, after City Hall gave e-bikers license to run roughshod over New York City.”

She said on a summer day in 2019, she was mowed down by a food delivery e-biker going the wrong way down Sixth Ave. and not within the avenues bike land. She said the e-biker drove off “leaving me for dead. The accident cost me six top teeth and damaged 11 others. It decimated my jaw and left me with an extensive nose fracture and permanent bone loss. I’ve had five surgeries.”

Tisch said in Feb. 2025 when she revealed the tougher enforcement that she was responding to widespread complaints by legislators and community boards about the peril that pedestrians felt because many bikers and deliveristas violated city traffic laws by running red lights and stop signs, driving on sidewalks and driving the wrong way down one way streets. Adams had also set a top speed limit of 15MPH for e-bikes. Citibike complied by putting regulators on its fleet that blocked them from going over 15 MPH. But many food delivery workers still do not follow the slower speed, in part because their earnings are based on how fast and how often they make their deliveries.

“Every New Yorker on our roads, whether driving or biking, deserves to be treated fairly. By ending criminal summonses for low-level traffic offenses, we’re ensuring cyclists and e-bike riders — including those who deliver our food and groceries — are treated like others on the road,” said Mamdani.

“At the same time, we’re making our streets safer for everyone. In partnership with the City Council, we’ll strengthen safety standards, hold app companies accountable and expand training for delivery riders. This balanced approach supports riders while protecting pedestrians and motorists — and moves us closer to making our streetscape the envy of the world.”

The rules that Adams and Tisch put in required a biker issues the misdemeanor summons to personally appear in court to enter a plea.

Judges complained that the civil court system was being clogged by hearings for relatively minor offenses. And many of the summonses were being tossed because the paper work had not been filled out properly by police.

And advocates of deliveristas, who deliver food from Uber Eats, Grub Hub and other apps said that since many of the delivery workers were minorities, criminalization would make it easier for ICE to grab them, since it would now be an offense on their record.

Streetsblog, which has pushed the biker cause insisted that traffic fatality statistics show bikes and e-bikes account for only a minor number of accidents. “In 2024, 9,610 pedestrians were injured in crashes, just 37 of them in crashes with e-bike riders—meaning that e-bike riders caused just 0.4 percent of pedestrian injuries that year,” Streetsblog wrote.

Janet Schroeder, founder of the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, sasid police statics are totally unreliable. Over 100 members who have been badly injured by bikes and e-bikes, said the vast majority of accidents are never reported. “Ninety four percent of our 101 seriously injured victims have no police report,” she noted.

Gail Greg who had written for Straus News on the topic was knocked down on Sixth Ave. in Greenwich Village by an e-biker who was going the wrong way in the bike lane on an uptown street. The police said her they would only do a police report if there was a fatality involved.

“I have mixed feelings about the change,” said Gregg. “I don’t believe that bikers should receive criminal charges, especially since drivers don’t. But, unfortunately, there seems to be no other way, at the moment, to hold bikers accountable and to collect penalties.”

The relaxed biker rules go into effect on March 27.