It is not a secret that the number of people who’ve adopted bicycling on a regular basis has increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic. And while lockdowns are tentatively lifting and we slowly get back to life in the new normal, you might assume that those cyclists would go back to their Ubers, taxis, and personal automobiles—effectively decreasing the number of potential bicycle accidents in New York City. One study shows that’s just not the case.
According to the city’s counts of bicyclists at natural chokepoints (like the East River Bridges) the average number of bikes on the street increased by more than 25,000 per day in June. That’s a whopping 11.4% higher than during the same time period last year. But numbers in certain neighborhoods are even higher. Indeed, on the Williamsburg Bridge, those counts were up 39%. Those numbers are also vastly larger than counts during 2019 and other years prior to the Pandemic.
While this new trend may have certain benefits—such as decreasing traffic density and lowering overall carbon emissions in NYC, it brings new challenges—including the potential for a dramatically larger number of bicycle accidents in New York City.
The number of electric-assist bicycle accidents has already more than tripled and safety advocates are anxiously awaiting the year-to-year statistics.
However, one statistic still holds true even with the increase in the number of bicyclists on our streets—those accidents in which they are involved are overwhelmingly caused by careless automobile operators. The city has taken notice of the new traffic trends and has increased their plan to make NYC more bike-friendly (including the addition of 30 miles of dedicated bike paths) but previous efforts have failed to improve the safety that the planners had hoped for.
Pandemic or not, one thing has remained the same: if you’ve been injured by a careless driver, you need the help of an expert New York City bicycle accident lawyer. Call the law Offices of Nussin S. Fogel at 800-734-9338 or 212-385-1122 for your free consultation today.