How New York City plans to crack down on illegal e-bikes and scooters
Photo by Thomas Loizeau on Unsplash
More than a dozen new bills will be introduced in the New York City Council this fall that aim to curb illegal electric bikes and scooters, one week after a 17-year-old riding an illegal motorized bike was hit and killed by an SUV. Speaker Julie Menin and several other council members announced plans to hold a hearing on September 30 on e-bike and e-scooter safety. Menin also released a list of 17 bills to be considered next month, including legislation that bans class 3 bikes traveling at 25 miles per hour, requires more rider data from third-party delivery apps, increases enforcement, and creates a task force to study street design, among others.
“Every New Yorker deserves to move around our city freely and safely, regardless of how they get around. But too many people have been seriously injured or killed in crashes involving illegal, high-speed e-bikes, e-motos, and e-scooters,” Menin said.
“We already have laws on the books, yet they are not being adequately enforced — and we must also examine what additional legislative solutions are needed to keep New Yorkers safe.”
Menin, along with Council Members Shaun Abreu, Harvey Epstein, and Oswald Feliz, will lead the hearing on September 30.
As the New York Times reported, a 17-year-old boy riding an illegal e-bike died last week after he collided with an SUV on Centre Street near City Hall, and a 49-year-old woman riding a stand-up e-scooter on the Upper West Side died last month after being hit by a driver. In May, two men died, one riding an illegal scooter and the other a regular bike, after crashing into each other in a bike lane on the Queensboro Bridge.
According to Menin, e-bike collisions are up 31.7 percent this year compared to 2025, with over 500 collisions involving e-bikes in 2026 alone. As Streetsblog reported, Menin did not specify that the majority of deaths and injuries were “people riding e-bikes, not people hit by people riding e-bikes.”
The city’s Department of Transportation found that between 2017 and 2025, 45 rider deaths involved illegal e-bikes that travel faster than 25 mph, accounting for 54 percent of all e-bike rider deaths during that period. During the same period, 14 rider fatalities involved stand-up scooters capable of traveling faster than 20 mph, representing 52 percent of all stand-up scooter deaths.
A bill sponsored by Council Member Lynn Schulman would require delivery services to obtain a business license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Others ban the sale and rental of Class 3 bicycles with electric assists, require the police to report traffic enforcement involving e-bikes, increase penalties, and require third-party apps to submit data on drivers’ ID and location.
Additional bills will be introduced in the coming weeks that include more insurance requirements for delivery apps, trade-in incentives for unsafe devices, and “infrastructure changes to slow high-speed riding.”
Separately, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday announced action to stop the sale of illegal e-bikes and scooters by issuing cease-and-desist orders to 42 online retailers.
Motorized stand-up scooters weighing more than 100 pounds or capable of traveling faster than 20 miles per hour, e-bikes capable of speeds exceeding 25 miles per hour, and seated mopeds that do not have and display a valid identification number are all considered illegal in New York.
The mayor said it should be up to the corporations, not every New Yorker, to know the law. Each penalty will result in a $2,000 fine for each individual infraction.
When asked during a press conference on Wednesday about the Council’s legislative proposals, Mamdani said he plans to work with the Council, but was more focused on immediate action.
He said he does not support bills that would require riders to register with the state.
“I think the focus of today is tackling the root causes of what has led to the loss of many New Yorkers’ lives,” Mamdani said when asked about the bill. “When it comes to registration for e-bikers, I do not believe that that would actually improve street safety, and that’s not an approach that I believe we should move ahead with.”
The Council voted to legalize e-bikes and scooters in 2020 to decriminalize the work of delivery workers, most of whom are immigrants of color. Under Mayor Eric Adams, the NYPD began issuing criminal summonses to riders for low-level offenses and mandated a 15-mile-per-hour speed limit for e-bikes.
Last spring, Mamdani rescinded the policy for minor violations. Instead, officers issue standard traffic tickets to cyclists, the same given to drivers.
The mayor said the 42 companies, including Amazon, Wayfair, and Walmart, which sell the illegal bikes, have until August 18 to comply.
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