NYC's Pending E-Bike Bills: What They Would Change for People Hurt in a Crash

Take a commuter from Massapequa who walks from Penn Station to work on Second Avenue. At East 34th Street, with the walk signal, a delivery e-bike comes through the crosswalk and knocks the commuter down. The rider is working for an app, the frame label says class three, and nobody in the commuter’s household owns a car.

On September 30, 2026, three New York City Council committees held a joint hearing on 23 bills and resolutions about e-bikes, e-scooters, mopeds and delivery apps. One of them, Int 994, would change the answer to the question the commuter’s family asks first, which is who pays. None of them is law. This post reads each text for what it would change for a pedestrian or rider hurt in an e-bike crash, beside the rule that decides that claim today, which our guide to who pays after a Long Island e-bike crash lays out statute by statute.

What happened at the September 30 hearing

The Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure, Consumer and Worker Protection, and Public Safety met jointly at City Hall. The Council’s press release that day described “a record 23 legislative proposals,” and Speaker Julie Menin said that what the Council hears “will directly inform the package of legislation this Council moves forward.”

Legistar records the introduced items as “Hearing Held by Committee” and “Laid Over by Committee” on September 30, 2026; a bill laid over stays in committee without a vote. Three items heard in advance, Int 1102, Int 1110 and Int 1120, were laid over the same way and formally introduced at the October 8, 2026 stated meeting. As of October 14, 2026, no committee agenda on Legistar lists any of the 23 items for a vote.

The committee report, citing NYPD data through September 20, 2026, counts 738 e-bike rider injuries and 13 deaths this year, against 601 and 10 over the same period of 2025; drawing on a 2024 Comptroller’s report on 2020 to 2023, it notes that in fatal e-bike crashes “the majority of fatalities were the e-bike riders themselves.”

Who pays today, before any of these bills

None of the bills amends the state law that already decides who pays. Vehicle and Traffic Law § 125 excepts “bicycles with electric assist as defined in section one hundred two-c of this article” from “motor vehicle,” and the no-fault, MVAIC and owner-liability statutes all borrow that definition. The working rules:

• A pedestrian hit by a lawful e-bike has no first-party benefits from the bike and no MVAIC claim. The claim is negligence against the rider and, under the general rule that an employer answers for an employee acting within the scope of the job, the employer.
• An e-bike rider hit by a car collects first-party benefits from the car’s insurer under Insurance Law § 5103(a)(1), which pays “Persons, other than occupants of another motor vehicle or a motorcycle.” A rider on a lawful e-bike is neither.
• A device over the state limits (750 watts or more, or assist past its class speed) is a motor vehicle: its owner answers for a permissive rider, and if it is uninsured a pedestrian it hits can claim against MVAIC.

So the first question that’s asked in every one of these files is not who’s at fault, but what kind of machine is it? Photograph the motor label because the machine decides what statute applies and which insurance carrier, if any, is involved in the case. A lawful e-bike has no no-fault policy. The pedestrian that gets hit by a lawful e-bike in a crosswalk has no first-party benefits from any auto policy and has no claim against MVAIC. It’s just negligence against the rider of the bike, as well as the employer if the person was an employee on the job.

For the commuter on Second Avenue, that means a negligence claim against the rider and, if the rider was the app’s employee, against the app. Whether an app-based delivery worker is an employee is contested; our guide to the 2026 e-bike crackdown covers that fight. Whether any insurer stands behind the rider is the next question to answer.

The insurance bill: Int 994

Int 994, sponsored by Council Member Gale Brewer with five co-sponsors and introduced August 13, 2026, would add an insurance section to the city’s licensing law for third-party food delivery services. The operative sentence: a service that engages a worker who uses a delivery device “shall maintain an insurance policy providing liability coverage for injury or death of any person, and damage to or destruction of any property, where liability for such injury or death of a person, or damage to or destruction of property, arises out of a food delivery worker’s operation of a delivery device during trip time or on-call time.”

The minimums are $100,000 for injury or death to one person, $300,000 for all persons in one accident with no more than $100,000 each, and $50,000 for property damage. “On-call time” is time the worker is logged in and available for offers, so the coverage would reach a worker riding between orders. If the policy lapses “for any reason,” the service’s license “shall become void.”

The text does not say whose liability the policy must insure, the service’s, the worker’s or both. It does not make the service liable for the worker’s negligence, and it says nothing about how an injured person would reach the policy. Its “delivery device” excludes “any vehicle that is capable of being registered with the New York state department of motor vehicles,” so a moped delivery is outside it.

A companion bill, Int 110 (Council Member Selvena Brooks-Powers), would bar a delivery business from requiring its riders “to indemnify or hold harmless such business for any claims” arising from their deliveries.

The commuter’s claim, today and under Int 994:

A bill is not a law. These bills had a hearing on September 30, 2026, the committees laid them over, and nobody voted. So these are just proposals that have not become law. If you were hurt today, today’s law applies to your case. So read the bills for what they would change if they became law, but then build the claim on what the statute says now.

The class three bills: Int 244 and Int 1110

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 102-c(c) describes a bicycle with electric assist whose motor “may be used exclusively to propel such bicycle” and “is not capable of providing assistance when such bicycle reaches a speed of twenty-five miles per hour,” and the class exists “Solely within a city having a population of one million or more.” Consequently, in New York City a class three bike is outside “motor vehicle” today.

Int 244, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson with 26 co-sponsors, in conjunction with the Manhattan Borough President, goes to the seller. No person could “distribute, sell, lease, rent or offer for sale, lease, or rental” a class three e-bike in the city. The penalty is $0 for a first violation and up to $2,000 for each later one within two years.

Int 1110, also Hudson’s, goes to the rider: “No person shall operate a class three bicycle with electric assist on streets or in parks and other public places in the city of New York.” Before April 1, 2029, a rider would get a warning instead of a notice of violation; after that, penalties run from $0 to $100, and on a third or later violation a bike ridden in a way that endangered the rider or others may be impounded. The bill would take effect 24 months after it became law.

Both bills amend the city’s Administrative Code; neither amends § 102-c or § 125, the definitions the insurance statutes borrow. Once Int 1110 took effect, a class three rider hit by a car would be riding in violation of a city law, even in the years when the text calls for a warning instead of a penalty. A defendant could offer that on fault, and in an action against a driver CPLR 1411(b) bars a rider whose share of the fault is greater than the driver’s.

On Long Island the same bike is already a different machine. Class three exists only in a city of a million people or more, so a throttle e-bike that assists to 25 miles per hour fits none of § 102-c’s classes in Nassau or Suffolk and, under the analysis in our Suffolk guide, has no exception from “motor vehicle” there today.

Records, street design and shared fleets

Three bills would make delivery apps track or report data, and a fourth adds a check. Int 78 (Brewer) would send the city per-trip data, including GPS “data points” showing “the route taken by the delivery worker.” Int 1120 (Council Member Lincoln Restler) would have apps track e-bike and moped workers for speeding, wrong-way and sidewalk riding. Int 1021 (Majority Leader Shaun Abreu) would require an annual report of every delivery incident “that resulted in death or serious injury,” and Int 389 (Restler) would require apps to verify moped registrations. The reports would go to the city, and none of the texts addresses access by a person hurt in a crash.

Five more put duties on city agencies and share-system operators: calming devices in bike lanes at no fewer than 50 intersections (Int 1066, Council Member Julie Won), rules of the road shown to share users (Int 214, Council Member Shahana Hanif), shared e-bikes and e-scooters that “gradually decelerate” to a stop on a sidewalk (Int 1102, Abreu), and crash data (Int 1052 and Int 989). The texts are silent on whether breaching those duties supports an injury claim. Today, the practical point is to identify the app or share system quickly, because that is where any record of the trip lives.

The 23 items, read for the injured

The table lists every item heard on September 30, 2026 that bears on a crash claim.

The clocks the bills would start

Each bill carries its own effective-date clause, and each clock starts only on the day the bill becomes law. None has.

What to do if you were hurt in an e-bike crash now

The clocks that run today are state law: three years to sue for negligence under CPLR 214(5), and, if the city is a defendant, a notice of claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law § 50-e and suit within one year and 90 days under § 50-i. If the device was over-spec and the rider fled, the MVAIC deadlines are short; our hit-and-run settlement guide covers them.

Don’t wait for the police report to tell you what the bike was like. Take a picture of it before it’s picked up: the motor, the label on the frame, the throttle, the spot where there should be a plate. Write down the name of the app that’s on the bag or the phone mount. That photograph is your first piece of evidence.

Bring these to the first call:

• The photograph of the bike, its motor label and the place where a plate would be.
• The name of the app or business the rider was working for, from the bag, the box or the phone.
• The police report number.
• The emergency room discharge papers.
• The declarations page of any auto policy in your household.

Battery fires: see our e-bike battery fire guide.

Before you call

By the end of the first week, the commuter from Massapequa has a photograph of the class three label, the app’s name off the cargo box, a police report number and an emergency room record. Under today’s law that is a negligence claim against the rider and, if the rider was the app’s employee, the app. Int 994 would add an app policy; it is not law, so the claim is built on what exists. Our pedestrian accident and electric scooter accident pages cover the rest.

If a delivery e-bike hit you in the city or on Long Island, or a car hit you while you were riding one, call (516) 750-0595 or request a free case review with the photograph of the bike’s label in hand.

Sources

• New York City Council, press release, New York City Council Highlights Proposed E-Bike Legislation Ahead of Major Hearing (September 30, 2026)
• New York City Council, Legistar: Int 0994-2026, Int 0110-2026, Int 0244-2026, Int 1110-2026, Int 0078-2026, Int 1120-2026, Int 1021-2026, Int 0389-2026, Int 1066-2026, Int 0214-2026, Int 1102-2026, Int 0989-2026, Int 1052-2026, Res 0043-2026, Res 0044-2026
• Vehicle and Traffic Law § 102-c, § 125, § 388
• Insurance Law § 5103, § 5202
• CPLR § 214, § 1411; General Municipal Law § 50-e, § 50-i

This article is general information about New York law and pending New York City legislation, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.