‘RIDERS’ on the Storm: Assembly Kills E-Bike Registration Bid

ALBANY —E-bike advocates dodged a bullet in the state legislature — the first of an expected fusillade — as a bid to create an entirely new bike registration regime was mercy-killed in the Assembly Transportation Committee on Wednesday.

The effort could come back from the dead, especially since Gov. Hochul once supported it. And other bills related to e-bike registration are pending.

The anti-e-bike bill in question, A157 was dubbed the “Responsible Implementation of E-bike Regulations for Safe Cycling” by Assembly Member Sam Pirozzolo (R–Staten Island), and, for some reason, he calls it “RIDERS,” even though the acronym does not scan.

The bill would have required all e-bikes, electric skateboards, and electric stand-up or sit-on scooters, to be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles. It would also mandate that riders of such devices be 16 or older and wear protective headgear (currently, city rules only require helmets for kids under 13). 

The Assembly Transportation Committee voted 16-7 to “hold for consideration” — Albanyspeak that means they voted not to vote on it. “A mercy killing,” as one insider said.

Though RIDERS appears dead in the water, Gov. Hochul has indicated interest in regulating e-bikes. In her executive budget she wanted to allow New York City to lower speed limits in bike lanes and wanted to classify ultra-heavy class 3 e-bikes as mopeds, but both of those items were slashed from the budget.)

Pirozollo, a licensed optician and contact lens practitioner, offered Streetsblog a wide variety of reasons for his bill. First, he claimed that it would thwart what he considers a big problem in the state: “A 12-year-old can order through the mail an e-bike or a unicycle that does 65 miles an hour,” he said.

“People are getting hit by these e-bikes,” he added, “by these unicyclists, by these scooters.” (He later clarified that “unicyclists,” he meant riders of one-wheeled electric skateboards, some of which can hit 28 miles per hour.)

Mostly, he parroted a common complaint among drivers about micromobility: that they should be subject to the same rules as 3,000-pound cars, which are responsible for virtually every single death on New York State roadways.

“You can’t buy a car unless you have insurance tags and registration when you pull out of a parking lot, right?.. [T]here should be some sort of responsibility on behalf of the operator,” he said.

He said he had witnessed e-bike crashes from his office, Steinway Eye Care, in Astoria at Broadway and Steinway Street. As a Staten Islander, he drives to the office. (Assembly members can have outside income of up to $35,000 per year.)

Riders of bicycles and e-bikes comprise just 2 percent of all trips in the city streets, and cause a tiny share of injuries to pedestrians. Nonetheless, they get 15 percent of red-light tickets handed out by NYPD officers, as Streetsblog reported. The NYPD recently told Streetsblog that e-bike riders caused just 0.04 percent of pedestrian injuries in the first quarter of 2025.

We shared such statistics with the Assembly member, but he disputed them, and, frankly, disparaged those who believe in the validity of such stats.

“I’m not gonna use the word stupid,” he said, “but I think that’s pretty stupid. We’re recognizing that deaths do happen, but it’s a small number [so] we don’t care?”

E-bikes, he said, should be regulated the same way as cars because “they are vehicles on the roads of New York City and New York state.”

Pirozollo’s comments are particularly ironic right now; since April 28, the NYPD has begun issuing criminal summonses to e-bike riders for minor traffic violations that only amount to a traffic ticket for drivers — different rules for different modes. The NYPD’s issuance of the so-called “pink summonses” immediately rose by more than 4,000 percent even as car drivers continue to kill and maim with little consequence.

Pirozollo is not the only Assembly member concerned with regulating e-bike riders. Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar (R-Queens) has a bill requiring e-bikes and e-scooters in New York City to be registered and have license plates — but it has not made it to a committee vote.

Pirozolo claims he’s a mountain biker and has cycled on many centuries around the northeast, but he is not a supporter of many measures backed by advocates. For example, he opposes legalizing the so-called Idaho stop — in other words, allowing cyclists to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields, which supporters say would make roadways safer for cyclists.

“If my light is green, whether it’s a car or bicycle or moped, I’m supposed to be guaranteed that intersection would be clear from my passage,” he said, ignoring the safety argument. 

And he thinks there are too many bike lanes on Staten Island — where there are virtually no on-street protected bike lanes — because “the population doesn’t get around by bike.” (Perhaps because lawmakers have not made it safe?)

Amy’s Albany Addenda

The long-stalled Idaho Stop bill, (S639/A7071), a major priority of street safety advocates, passed the Assembly Transportation Committee on Wednesday and now goes to Codes, the committee that handles laws related to criminal procedure, penal law, and civil practice law.

As we previously reported, the bill allows cyclists to treat red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yield signs, but still require cyclists to yield to pedestrians and cars if present. It’s already the law in 11 states and Washington, D.C. 

Sen. Rachel May (D-Onondaga) and Assembly Member Karen McMahon (D-Erie) proposed the law because it gets cyclists out of truck drivers’ blind spots and past cars that block bike lanes: two major causes of cyclist deaths. (Twenty-three cyclists were killed in New York City last year, according to Transportation Alternatives, a 23-percent increase from 2023.)

The Idaho Stop has other benefits, like reducing fatigue and encouraging cycling. The city Department of Transportation has long (long long) tried to implement the Idaho Stop via an administrative rule change, but has been blocked by City Hall.

Last year’s Idaho Stop bill passed the Assembly last session, but died in the Senate — and that may happen again this year; the Senate version has not yet been heard by the Transportation Committee.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Gov. Hochul included RIDERS in her executive budget. She did not. The governor did seek other changes in the rules covering class 3 e-bikes.