The City Council is expected to hold hearings Wednesday on a slate of proposed rules for e-bike and e-scooter safety amid two fatal e-bike crashes in Manhattan, including one where a woman was killed by a dump truck in Midtown.
The bevy of bills — two dozen are on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting — seeks to improve safety on two wheels from a variety of angles.
The hearing will come just two days after a 50-year-old woman riding her e-bike died after she collided with a dump truck on W. 34th St. near Seventh Ave. Monday, just down the street from Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building, cops said.
Two weeks earlier, on Sept. 18, 15-year-old Daria Serkov died when her Citi Bike e-bike was struck by a turning Peterbilt truck at the corner of First Ave. and E. 14th St.
Daria was seated behind her 16-year-old friend, who was operating the e-bike. The Citi Bike rental agreement requires riders to be at least 16 years old and states the bikes are for use by one rider only.
One of the bills being reviewed, proposed by Council Member Crystal Hudson (D-Brooklyn), would essentially outlaw any e-bikes capable of speeds above 20 mph within city limits.
Another, drafted by Council Member Lynn Schulman (D-Queens), would require third-party delivery companies to be licensed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection — giving the city additional oversight into companies that dispatch delivery workers on e-bikes.
Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer is also pushing a bill to explicitly include e-bikes in state laws against leaving the scene of a collision.
A particularly complex proposal would require rental e-vehicles, like Citi Bikes and scooter-shares, to be equipped with a suite of sensors allowing them to report when they are being ridden, illicitly, on a sidewalk.
But a significant portion of Wednesday’s hearing is expected to tackle the question of how the laws already governing e-bikes are being enforced.
NYPD Officers were out in force issuing tickets to bicycle riders, at the intersection of East 14th Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
One bill expected to be discussed Wednesday, sponsored by Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers (D-Queens), would require the NYPD to be more transparent regarding its traffic enforcement efforts.
No vote is expected Wednesday on any of the proposed legislation, but the NYPD, Transportation Department, and the DCWP are all expected to face questions at what Council Speaker Julie Menin (D, Manhattan) has called “an enforcement hearing.”
This year’s fatalities on e-bikes and e-scooters do not appear to have gone down despite a citywide 15-mph speed limit on e-bikes and e-scooters that went into effect last October.
Additionally, several of the e-vehicles involved in high-profile accidents have not been legal under the city’s existing laws.
Gabriel Nacato, a 17-year-old Brooklyn boy, was killed in July when his e-bike — a high-speed model illegal for sale and street use in New York City under existing laws — crashed with an SUV in Lower Manhattan. Wednesday’s hearing was scheduled after Nacato’s death.
NYPD officers and detectives investigate a fatal e-bike collision on Centre St. near Chambers St. in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, July 29, 2026 in New York City. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Two men died in a fatal collision on the Queensboro Bridge in May, when an e-scooter capable of 50mph speeds crashed head-on with a traditional bicycle.
As previously reported by the Daily News, e-bike rider fatalities have routinely outpaced those killed while riding traditional bicycles.
To date, 17 people have been killed while riding e-bikes this year, versus three killed while riding traditional bicycles. It’s been a record-deadly year for riders of stand-up e-scooters as well, with 11 fatalities to date in 2026.
Meanwhile, overall pedestrian deaths are trending down, with 67 people killed by traffic while walking the streets of New York this year — on trend to be the second-safest year for pedestrians since 2013.