NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — One week after a teenager was killed while riding an illegal e-bike, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that the city will crack down on illegal e-bike retailers with legal action.
The mayor announced Wednesday that the city will issue cease and desist orders to online retailers that ship e-bikes and other devices that are illegal to operate in New York City.
“Today we are speaking about companies like Amazon, Best Buy, Wayfair, some of the largest retailers in the country, and that they have been operating outside of the bounds of the law is something of immense concern to us and to New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
It comes one week after 17-year-old Gabriel Nataco was killed in a crash while riding a Deepower motorcycle that his family had purchased on Amazon.
The company no longer ships the bike to New York City.
There are three classifications for e-bikes and motorized scooters in New York City, with caps on speed limits of 20 to 25 mph.
The deadline for online retailers is August 18. After that, a $2,000 fine per sale of each illegal bike could be imposed.
“What we are asking them to do is follow the law that has been the law for more than five years, and yet they continue to violate it, not in a marginal way,” Mamdani said. “We’re talking about vehicles that can go sometimes more than double the legal limit of the speed. It’s not one or two miles over. And they are doing this because they know that there is money to be made.”
The announcement also comes one day after New York City Council members announced proposed legislation to make city streets safer.
Among the proposals under consideration are measures that would ban the sale of e-bikes capable of exceeding the city’s 15 mph speed limit, require additional insurance for third-party food delivery apps, crack down on the use of unregistered mopeds and increase penalties for riders who flee crash scenes.
Council members are also considering a trade-in program that would allow riders to exchange illegal bikes for safer ones, along with stronger consumer protections, expanded enforcement and infrastructure changes designed to slow high-speed riding.
According to city data, there have been more than 500 e-bike collisions and 795 scooter collisions so far this year, an increase of more than 28% compared to the same period last year.
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