I understand your frustrations and, for what it is worth, the Pedicab Owners Association fully agrees with your comments. The NYCPOA tried for many years to reign in the bad behavior you speak of and, after they were not able to do so, turned to the City Council for help. The behavior of which you speak is unacceptable and those drivers who shold be denied the privielge of operating a pedicab. That being said, I hope you can understand that responsible owners and drivers who carry insurance, drive safely, do not harrass pedestrians, etc - of which they are many - should not be made to suffer for the bad apples in the bunch. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, may be the simplest approach (and the one in large part taken by the City Council to please big donors), but it is not the wisest. Please know that your concerns are shared and of as great a concern to responsible pedicab owners and drivers as anyone.

They mobilize very quickly when they are threatened with possible regulation that might force them to actually have insurance and follow rules, yet they don't care about drugs, sexual harrassment, or clogging up every sidewalk, street, and park south of 59th St.

It is painfully obvious that they are fighting regulation because that will bring their free ride to an end. They'll have to abide by rules (very innocuous rules btw) and as they will be a regulated industry, one of them might actually feel compelled to pay income taxes.

I know this is a month plus after this story, but I'm pissed and I wanted someone to know about it.

This is Chad Marlow from The Public Advocacy Group LLC, and I wanted you to know that I did read your comments about the NYPD banning of pedicab from certain street by fiat (and you pointing that out is really apprciated). That part of the law not is not the subject of our present lawsuit because it is not "ripe" yet (we need to wait until the NYPD tries to use the power), but if they do try, that lawsuit will be coming shortly to a courtroom near you. For the other posters, your points about certain pedicab drivers driving dangerously and without lights, etc. is well-taken. It is not well-known that it was the pedicab industry itself that first called for City regulations of the industry specifically to reign in such irresponsible drivers. As BusGrrl said very well, a GOOD pedicab law would that raised standards for reckles pedicabs would be a big plus for the industry and the city. Of course, that's not what we have now.

Keep on reading StreetsBlog. It's the best!

- Chad

No lights, riding the wrong way, blowing red lights, etc. etc! All in a couple of minutes, at least from what I saw.

I'm all in favor of pedicabs but I would never ride in one the way they operate. In other cities I've been in with pedicabs, this was never the case. The operators were safe and professional!

I think city regulation could help this but limiting the numbers is NOT the answer. If the taxicab companies are so worried about a little "green" competition, nothing is stopping them from operating their own pedicab operations as long as there is not a cap on the numbers.

Where Paris has 10,000 public bicycles New York City could have 5,000 public pedicabs under full City Hall control. The City got a gift of 600 GEM electric vehicles from General Motors several years ago and has no problem using them. The same can be done with pedicabs and other human-scaled transport designed for the future of life on this planet.

Those provisions are also unfair: why pedicabs and not all or other traffic?

And, finally, as I've written to officials, those provisions could ruin the use of pedicabs for special events that require advance scheduling. How can, say, a bride and groom rely on a pedicab as their wedding day transportation if there's the threat that some city employee might ban pedicabs from the area on the very day? What, they HAVE to use a limousine? Oh, how very PlaNYC indeed.

I hope these principles get included in the lawsuit somehow, if NYCPOA and/or Public Advocacy Group is reading...