By Gus Saltonstall
A terrible collision between an electric bike and a taxi took place Thursday afternoon on the Upper West Side at West 72nd Street between Columbus and Central Park West.
Shortly after 2 p.m., I heard a loud bang from the building I was working within. The bang was followed by immediate screams. Panicked screams.
A quick look out the widow showed a crowd of people standing around a downed delivery biker, and a taxi parked nearby with its driver looking clearly distressed.
The man who had been on the bike appeared to have a clearly broken ankle or lower leg. There was blood surrounding where he had been hit.
The biker continued to scream as the crowd grew of onlookers looking to help. Multiple people called an ambulance. A car that had been passing by positioned itself horizontally in the roadway to block incoming traffic.
One man in particular went up to the downed biker and kept his hand on his chest, while also offering to translate any words.
The ambulance and police arrived within minutes. Medics took the biker away on a stretcher and police went and spoke to the taxi driver.
A video obtained by West Side Rag showed that the taxi and biker were traveling in opposite directions in the moments before the collision took place. It is unclear where exactly the two vehicles were in regards to the two-way roadway, though.
We reached out to NYPD for further details.
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Where exactly? The UWS is pretty large. The double orange lines show it’s a two-way street.
Thanks! Added.
e bike? or regular bike. That is an important detail.
That info is in the first line of the article. But it’s really not important what type of bike he was riding.
72nd street between Central Park west and Columbus Avenue been terrible lately. People are doing triple parking on south side of the street, and just to keep moving you need to you need drive on opposite side.
Good job getting the video, can you post it? since the e-bike operator will likely recover from a leg injury.
Facts from photo images-
Taxi was traveling westbound on the north side of street.
If delivery bike was going the opposite direction (then eastbound.).
In general, midday double/triple parking of trucks and vans are much more prevalent on the south side of west 72nd (eastbound).
Very often, bicycles have to leapfrog over the double yellow lines on eastbound W72nd. I’m guessing there were some misjudgements of space and speed. It could also be that one or both parties were speeding as they were both working.
There were some arguments on the previous stories about the last 4 years and who was to blame for the current traffic chaos. My take is.– … It is us. In a city where almost everything is within walking distance, suddenly we need everything delivered to our door step. How did we ever survive before Amazon and delivery apps?
Yes — 100% agree with that last paragraph. There are always going to be some people who do unnecessarily dangerous things while biking/ driving, but we can’t expect delivery riders to bring everything to our doors in record time (often giving them low ratings when they don’t, knowing their livelihoods depend on that), and then also blame them for riding quickly or against traffic.
With exceptions for people who are disabled/ elderly, for whom getting delivery may be a significant help, most of these deliveries are entirely unnecessary.
“but we can’t expect delivery riders to bring everything to our doors in record time (often giving them low ratings when they don’t, knowing their livelihoods depend on that)”
What do you mean “we”? I would say the overwhelming majority of the city does not use food delivery services. Food delivery is a luxury service for a small percentage of the population. Perhaps folks that use these services should pay for these delivery people’s insurance?
“It could also be that one or both parties were speeding as they were both working.”
Holy Wild Assumption, Batman! Only working people speed?
I feel horrible for the delivery person regardless if it is his fault or not. This is a very bad situation.
Unless the taxi driver managed to complete realign his car within yards of the collision, it appears he was on the right side of the road. I am all for more bike lanes but the reality is, many of these delivery drivers ignore the existing ones and drive the wrong way up and down them and crossing traffic when they feel like it. I think e bikes should be banned.
There are no bikes lanes on 72nd St.
Yeah, but victim shaming….
Sometimes (not clear here, but sometimes), shaming is just “person-in-the-wrong-shaming” not victim shaming. Edit: And just to add, you calling the cyclist a victim, implies the taxi driver is the victimizer. Without knowing who is at fault, we don’t know who the real victim is. The taxi driver could be a victim, suffering the trauma of having inflicted the pain, losing time away from earning, incurring insurance increase or losing job or medallion. Until facts are known, it is not victim blaming, but rather,, speculation.
There is no such implication. There can be a victim without a victimizer.
Great point! Everyone is a victim these days especially when things don’t work out for them too well. Sometimes it has to do with their choices, decisions, actions, and risks. Even when it puts others at risk or harms them. Physically or financially. Who really is the victim?
I recently bought a camera for my car. The bikes, ebikes, scooters and every other contraption people have constantly cut between cars. Worse is they pass on the right, a big motor vehicle no-no. Then include weaving in and out of traffic on the right. I’ve come very close to running people over and it’s clearly their fault. So, I have a camera now to back up my point of view to protect myself from their stupidity. I pray I don’t hit someone, but it just seems inevitable. Watching school age kids cut between cars at lights and speed through intersections. It’s just a matter of time before they make one simple mistake and it’s all over.
Hitting someone with a car is an awful, life changing experience for the driver (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer). Redesigning streets to physically separate cars and bikes and pedestrians is better for everyone. We don’t have to keep living in a neighborhood where people are buying cameras because they feel like they are inevitably going to end up killing a kid while driving.
I wish people would have more empathy for this poor man who had his leg snapped in half being hit by a car. I heard the smack when the car hit him, heard him screaming out in pain for what felt like an eternity, it was horrific – e-bike or not, bike lane or not, with traffic or against it. So many Upper West Siders stepped up and rushed to help him as best they could. Show some kindness and spare the squabbling for the politicians. Hoping he recovers safely.
We should also have empathy for the cab driver who will likely see this accident play over and over again in his head — especially if the facts show he did nothing wrong.
Here’s my take:
I hope the injured person is OK. No one deserves this.
The e-bikes are out of control. The bikes in general are out of control. I almost got hit my a biker running a light today while I was in a crosswalk, clearly walking at the right time. Ironically, it was while I was walking to pick up something that most people would now have delivered.
The double parking by the delivery trucks is out of control. Stop cutting deals with them. Ticket and tow. Incentivize the delivery trucks to do their work overnight – worst case if they are double parked then, they are a lot less disruptive. Use some of our many empty storefronts as places for them to leave packages for delivery during daytime. It’s not that hard.
It’s much easier to say that empty storefronts should be used as warehouses than it is to realistically implement such a plan. That would be a significant deviation from what retail-oriented spaces were designed for. Even if trucks were to deliver to those locations overnight (creating other forms of disruption), The packages won’t deliver themselves to the end user in a way that is not just as disruptive as under the current methods. Then people will complain about the clogging of sidewalks and curbs by various forms of local delivery vehicles. Turning empty storefronts into delivery hub systems is not the solution.
I am trying to be creative and think of a win-win situation. People are not going to suddenly stop ordering delivery items. There continue to be many empty storefronts and that problem is not ending anytime soon. Seems like a win-win. Agree that people pulling carts is not ideal but it is a lot less disruptive than the alternative. Got any better solutions?
People can always do in store pickup and then bring them to their homes themselves.
“The bikes are out of control” “the delivery trucks are out of control” I see passenger vehicles, including taxis and Uber cars, speed way over the limit, block bike lanes, block crosswalks, triple park, and run red lights every day. Personally, I find e-bikes to be unpleasant whether I am driving, walking, or cycling, but the numbers don’t lie… cars are the main safety issue. The number of TLC vehicles that still selfishly stand and block bike lanes after what happened on Central Park West a few years ago is shocking.
This is a false dichotomy. Just because cars pose a safety hazard does not mean e-bikes do not. Both of these things can be true.
What happened then and there?
Truly hope this person is OK and recovers.
Hope the person who was hit by a bike by Open Streets is OK and recovers.
Today in just a few minutes saw:
Pedestrian clipped by a Citibiker going through a red light and not in the bike lane.
Car with out of state plates and tinted windows speeded up to get through a yellow light.
Person looking at her phone while crossing at red light and her dog on a long leash behind her.
Parent crossing street looking at his phone with his little kid – 3ish – just behind him on a scooter.
Why all this absurd speculation about who was at fault? Wait for the facts folks!
People hate on ebikes but honestly yellow cabs are the worst. That’s what should be banned in NYC.
To Longtime UWser: An Australian tourist was killed by a truck driver as she rode a bike along CPW. This eventually led to the installation of “protected” CPW bike lanes.
Given what 72nd is now, we shouldn’t be surprised. This isn’t an “accident” but a failure of infrastructure. 72nd could be transformed from its current status as a car sewer with rampant double-parking to a multi-modal connector between our two great parks with dedicated bus and bike lanes and plentiful loading zones — a street for people, not just cars.
And it gets worse riding a bike on east 72 during the week with triple parked delivery and individual drivers. It’s a toss up if I make it to the doctor at Hospital for Special Surgery in one piece
Best thing – take the crosstown bus.
Just curious:
How long and wide is 72nd St? Is there enough space to have plentiful loading zones and bike lanes?
How would 72nd St be a street for people, not just cars? Are people supposed to walk on the street, not the sidewalk as they do now?
Are we discussing the same 72nd St?