The New York City Department of Transportation has reported that 2023 was the deadliest year for cyclists since 1999. A total of 30 people lost their lives on two wheels. That represents a more than 50 percent increase from the fatality rate of the previous year, or the year before it.
Cyclist deaths in New York City
(Source: New York City Department of Transportaion)
The number of cyclists who were killed while riding traditional non-motorized bikes (7) actually declined from any of the previous 15 years. So, the vast majority of the city's cycling fatalities were on eBikes. Moreover, those 23 deaths in eBike crashes is more than double the number of any other year for which records have been kept.
That number is, in part, a reflection of the degree to which eBikes have, as some cyclists and pedestrians say, "taken over." Indeed, no eBike casualties are recorded before 2014 because, before that time, there weren't significant numbers of motorized bikes on this city's streets.
(That era--the early to mid 2010's--was also, interestingly, when the popularity of motorcycles was at its lowest ebb in at least half a century.)
But one theme has remained constant in the past quarter-century. About half of all bicycle and eBike deaths are a result of crashes with trucks. A major reason for that, I believe, is that truck drivers simply don't see cyclists. Also, delivery trucks often pull into bike lanes or the rightmost traffic lane, which is used by cyclists when a separate bike lane isn't present. Some drivers, I imagine, don't know how else to make deliveries. Plus, there is simply more traffic of all kinds on this city's streets, in part because of ride-share services that began to proliferate at around the same time as eBikes.
