Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Curiosities t1_j9doknf wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Why Fires From E-Bike Batteries Have Left Cities Helpless by bikeskata

That six deaths referred specifically to the battery fires. Cars are, at least, required to have license plates and drivers to be licensed and insured. You can identify someone, you can claim against their insurance for damage or injury. If ebike riders hit someone or cause damage somewhere, you're out of luck when they zoom off. Death stats you may be able to find, but accident stats, no.

One change could be to require license plates and insurance, with deliberate consideration and planning to make sure it happens in a way that minimizes cost and harm. Maybe inspections for the batteries if they don't ban the unapproved ones. But banning the non certified batteries would work fine with license plates and insurance.

12

k1lk1 t1_j9dqqkw wrote

> You can identify someone, you can claim against their insurance for damage or injury.

The first thing wrong with this is that fake and obscured plates are at epidemic levels in the city. I could walk down the block and find 5 right now before I got to the nearest bodega. These guys could mow down pre-schoolers at a crosswalk and get away with it if they kept going.

The second thing is that insurance is motivated at meth-head levels of single minded focus to make the problem go away as soon as possible and as cheaply as possible, and will almost NEVER go beyond the police report in assigning blame or forcing compensation. So you're dependent in your payout, on whatever bored cops show up that day, and that's ONLY IF the vehicle aggressor sticks around.

The clear and specific way to solve the battery issue is to ban non-UL batteries, and have random checkpoints at which all EVs are inspected and impounded if found to have fakes.

8

supermechace t1_j9fg6iz wrote

like anything it's usually a few bad apples that ruin things for everyone else. My friends elderly mom got hit by a car. Lawyer got her 60k plus hospital bills. If e vehicles are required to be insured it could also lead to the delivery services requiring only licensed vehicles be used and employers held liable or bikes confiscated for being unlicensed. Fake license plates is part of the general NYC police indifference which is impacting all crime levels but eventually politicians will get police to make this a priority again, I long island there are crack downs on fake paper plates from time to time. Unfortunately in the US only major fear of consequences motivate the bad actors

0