The rickshaw racket continues to be hell on wheels more than a year after the city passed a law regulating the pedicab industry.
Legal jockeying between the Department of Consumer Affairs and a pedicab trade group has put the brakes on enforcement of regulations that would curb serious safety violations, which were a large reason the law was created.
“Not only do you have more people getting run over and more people getting hurt, but it’s a license to steal,” said pedicab pilot David Sirk, complaining about the wildly variable rates that drivers charge.
A police spokesman said the NYPD continues to enforce traffic offenses such as “running lights or proceeding the wrong way.”
But “enforcement of regulations enacted by the City Council pertaining specifically to pedicabs is currently enjoined by the courts,” the rep acknowledged.
Those regulations – which include laws on fare structures, seat belts, signals and identification of drivers – are all on hold until the two sides finish hashing out their differences in court.
The main sticking point is that the law, which passed in April 2007, limits the number of available licenses to 325.
“The New York City Pedicab Owners’ Association, one of several in this fledgling industry, sued the city in an attempt to claim all available pedicab licenses for only themselves,” said Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz.
“The regulations have been stayed pending final determination of their allegations.”
But pedicab advocate Chad Marlow fired back: “There are pedicab drivers who are not members of our organization who don’t have seat belts, don’t have insurance, they don’t have headlights and tail light. There’s a chance that someone could get hurt and be unprotected because the Department of Consumer Affairs refuses to enforce these things.”