NYC e-bikes, scooters may soon need license plates, registration after 46 deadly crashes in 5 years
This bill has a ticket to ride.
The City Council is mulling a law that would require license plates and registration for electric bikes and scooters — after 47 people were killed in e-bike crashes over the last five years.
The scourge of e-bikes in our streets, on our sidewalks, and even inside our buildings continues to wreak chaos, injure and maim people, and, tragically, take lives,” Council member Bob Holden (D-Queens) said Wednesday at the first public hearing on the bill.
The bill – named Priscilla’s Law after 69-year-old Head Start worker Priscilla Loke, who was killed when a Citi Bike plowed into her in Chinatown in September 2023 — would mandate a registration with the state Department of Motor Vehicles and an ID number on a visible plate for every bicycle and scooter with electric assist.
Supporters of the bill, including those from the NYC Electric Vehicle Safety Alliance – a coalition of 1,200 members, including 98 pedestrian and cyclist victims of “e-vehicle and moped violence” – say Priscilla’s Law will increase accountability in e-bike-related traffic violations, accidents and crimes.
“Living with a traumatic brain injury has become my full-time job,” said NYC EVSA cofounder Pamela Manasse, who was struck by an e-bike rider in 2022. “Every step I take is a fight for balance and energy, but I refuse to give up — and my mission now is to push for safer streets so no one else has to endure this pain.”
Serious injuries among other victims have included traumatic brain injuries, brain bleeds, fractured skulls, broken bones and more, the EVSA said.
A dozen people have died in 2024 alone from crashes involving e-bike and e-scooters, according to city data, and 47 people have died in 46 crashes over the last five years.
Most of the victims are drivers themselves, though roughly nine pedestrians have been fatally hit by the vehicles in the last five years – and crashes are still vastly underreported, according to NYC EVSA member Andrew Fine.
