And I disagree that pedicabs cause motorists to use more gas. Vehicles conserve gas when cruising at a single speed, and waste it when they brake and accelerate. The main culprits behind incrementally greater gas use and pollution are not the small number of pedicabs, but overall congestion (stop-and-go) and aggressive motoring styles.

Also, I have real doubts about your claims that pedicabs are no greener and that they impede traffic in a way that makes cars burn more fuel. Yes, I'll grant you that for moments at a time, clusters of them can hold up a few individual limos in the theater district around curtain times, but I honestly doubt that that, or any effect like it, causes more emissions than usual car congestion does. The fact that I have been a passenger in a pedicab in NYC a couple of times does not give me authority to disprove those claims of yours, but those claims sound like you don't have data to prove them either.

Incidentally I'm with you on banning horse-drawn carriages, but only because I don't think it's a humane life for the horses!

Put pedicabs in bike lanes and they're "out of my way," thinks the entitled-feeling driver, which is what he also thinks about bicyclists.

I said: "And as a cyclist, once in a while you can't slow down for a little while - seconds? - until there's a safe place to pass a slower-traveling pedicab? Are you really *that* important?"

That's exactly the attitude of drivers in NYC who honk endlessly when they have to pause for a second, say, when someone is hopping out of a cab or an ambulance is scraping up the previous driver's roadkill.

Do I believe that pedicabs operating dangerously and carelessly are a problem? Yes! Do I believe that cyclists riding (at anything less than snail's-pace) in the wrong direction or blowing through lights and disregarding pedestrian (and other vehicle) priority put myself as a cyclist and pedestrian at risk? Yes!

Do I think that therefore we should make the city less-safe for those who are being responsible? Can you answer that yourself?

And as a cyclist, once in a while you can't slow down for a little while - seconds? - until there's a safe place to pass a slower-traveling pedicab? Are you really *that* important?

When cautious driving is the norm, it's easier and safer for autos to go around a pedicab (yes, maybe even passing in the bike lane) than it is for bikes to go around pedicabs, entering the lanes of faster traffic.

I own one and really want that margin of safety!

The current law bans us from bike lanes. But that same law bans us from other boroughs, bridges, even Midtown at Christmastime! I have long suspected that the bike-lane ban and all the other restrictions were written into the law simply to make it impossible to make a living driving a pedicab. The bike-lane ban, specifically, would not only annoy the hell out of motorists stuck behind me, but would have cops fine me up to $2000 and a night in jail for giving my passengers the safety that they deserve.
TourguideStan

You observe all the above on 8th Avenue, any day of the week. Last night at rush hour, there were more walkers in the bike lane than on the sidewalk -- no exaggeration.

Imagine a fare's response when they were told they couldn't turn into a bike lane because it's against traffic.

Most taxi passenges are cool, I assume, when cabbies refuse to drive the wrong way on one-way streets, so a pedicab's sticking to the prescribed bike-lane direction ought not raise too much ire.

Obeying the rules is the price of entry, in my mind.

The same day as the Williamsburg Bridge pedicab crash the Daily News ran a story about a confused pedicab driver who was ticketed for using the Holland Tunnel. So I guess, regardless of NYC laws, using POrt Authority tunnels is also a no-no.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/11/2009-06-11_confused_pedicab_arrested_to_pedaling_way_into_lincoln_tunnel.html

Last summer, when the temperature was 90+ and it was too hot for carriage horses to work, I saw flatbed trucks dropping off dozens of pedicabs on Central Park South. Obviously where there's a will (and a few bucks to be made) there's a way.

And regardless, what you have seen does not mean pedicabs should simply be banned. It means they should be regulated.

Also, I'm glad that pedicab fares will soon be posted. I've never ridden in one, in part because I have no idea how much it costs and didn't feel like asking.

I have occasionally felt like taking one home to Queens, so I was disappointed that this crash looks like it will discourage people from doing that.