Matthew Taub is a writer and lawyer in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of “Death of the Dying City,” a novel. He filed this report about how to make biking safe in our city, including insurance, licenses, helmets, and traffic law changes.
The debut of the “Citibike” program is an exciting moment for the City of New York, despite some predictable opposition. But many issues need to be addressed, such as insurance, licenses, helmets, and traffic law changes. Such reforms should apply not just to bike share programs, but possibly for all bicyclists in general.
*Note: on the web site Medium, this is a collaborative post where readers are invited to weigh in with commentary and suggestions, in addition to my proposed reforms (icons along the right margin of the Medium web site should allow this).
1. Mandatory (or at least optional) insurance requirements.
The fact that most bicyclists are uninsured is a gaping hole in the ability for accident victims to recover when they sustain injuries. Many pedestrians have been seriously wounded or even killed by bicyclists.
(Full disclosure: in addition to being a writer, I am also a personal injury lawyer. Though I often represent bicyclists as Plaintiffs when they are injured by motor vehicles, I also ocassionally sue bicyclists for striking pedestrians. However, unless the bicyclists are employed by a messenger service or restaurant, whereby they are in the scope of employment while making deliveries (and thus covered by the employer’s insurance), there can often be little ability to recover any verdict award from a leisure bicyclist’s personal assets.)
The Citibike program already charges user fees for riders to utilize the service. Like Zipcar, the car sharing program where insurance is automatically included, the Citibike fee should include the cost of insurance for any accidents. It seems unclear as to whether it does, but this should certainly be a mandatory component for allowing access to the “Citibike” bicycles.
The further question is then whether the state should also require insurance for all bicyclists, or at least make it available. Such insurance is often difficult to obtain— not always easily tethered to a renter’s or homeowner’s policy and rarely independently available (though this may change). In any event, this all leads to the next issue.
2. Should bicyclists be licensed?
This issue cuts a few ways. Along with a requirement (or at least an option) for insurance coverage, another issue is whether bicyclists should be licensed and/or be required to have small license plates posted on their frames. If plates were required, traffic cameras could then capture them with respect to cyclists who violate traffic laws,cause motor vehicle accidents, or are wanted in police investigations. Any bicycle without a plate could immediately be pulled over to enforce the rule, such as with motor vehicles presently.
Continue reading Matthew Taub : Making City Biking Safe (An Opinion) →
Seems that Le Pain Quotidien, a cafe chain with 185 branches arond the world, is opening on Fifth Avenue and Carroll Street. Not only that: it’s opening in the space that was formerly Moutarde. And we all remember Moutarde’s claim to fame: it was the location used in Julia and Julia to impersonate a real Parisian cafe.
