“New Yorkers deserve more mobility options, and we are focused on welcoming a safer, more responsible service in city streets,” a spokesman for the mayor said Thursday in a statement. “But dangerous operations will not be tolerated; we are looking closely at reckless practices.”
Revel expects the steps will improve security. Not everyone is convinced.
Erik Marketan, an Injury Prevention Coordinator in St. Louis; Barnabas Hospital in New York, determined that riders can remove their helmets after taking a photo.
He believes Revel should increase its prices – it costs $ 1 to start a ride and $ 0.25 per minute thereafter, plus a $ 5 sign-up fee. Marketan also said that Revel should increase the minimum age for riders, which is 21 for drivers and 18 for passengers, the better attracting more responsible riders. The brains of young riders are not fully developed until their early 20s, and they make risky decisions, Marketan said.
“They don’t have that part of the brain to say ‘hey let me check myself before I wreck myself,’ Marketan said.
He also said Revel needed to make his scooters more visible, with bright reflective tape and orange colors. “Make them as ugly and visible as can be,” Marketan said.
Revel riders will be asked about topics such as where mopeds can be ridden, and how users are punished if they run red lights, ride on highways or have a minor passenger ride with them. New York City customers must answer all questions correctly twice before they can drive Revel’s cars again. The quiz takes about 10-15 minutes to complete.
The company has already rolled out the quiz in other markets. It also operates in Washington, DC, Miami, Austin, Oakland and Berkeley, California.
Revel riders have been criticized for bad behavior and breaking rules, such as driving where they should not, not wearing helmets and running red lights.
New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez believes Revel’s death could have been prevented with better security measures in place.
He introduced a bill Thursday that calls on the Department of Transportation to take additional steps to ensure shared mopeds are used safely in New York.
Rodriguez said it was not enough for Revel to require riders to take a selfie wearing a helmet. He wants Revel to add a system, such as a camera, to always identify when a helmet is being worn.
Rodriguez also finds that Revels’ top speed should be lowered to 25 miles per hour from 30. New York City’s speed limit is 25 mph, unless otherwise stated.
Ben Welle, the city’s director of integrated transportation and innovation at the World Resources Institute, said Revel’s mopeds should be slowed down as part of an aggressive plan to reduce all traffic speeds in New York City.
He said the Revel deaths are a symptom of deep problems in infrastructure safety, such as streets designed to allow high speeds.
“You can not dispel the fact that these are vulnerable road users, such as fatalities for pedestrians and fatalities for cyclists,” said Welle. “People make mistakes. It is inevitable that you will have problems unless the city designs a safer system.”
Revel CEO Frank Reig told CNN Business that Revel keeps its top speed at 30 mph.
“We need to make sure that our users are not placed in unsafe situations, because they do not really have the power to flow with traffic, to keep cars on major highways,” Reig said.
Revel was originally launched in Brooklyn, New York in 2018 and this year expanded its fleet and service area of New York. The mopeds became a popular transit alternative during the pandemic, but safety issues quickly arose. Health officials in St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York said they saw an increase in injuries from Revel crashes in late May. In July, Revel said it had suspended more than 1,000 riders in the prior 30 days for violation of their rules.
Reig said wearing helmets in recent months has been a major issue, as has bad behavior.
“I’m not sure if that’s a symptom of New York City, a lot of people who are quarantined for 10 to 12 weeks are hanging out in their apartments. The city is a little bit restless in May, June, July in July,” Reig said. “Anyone who was here like myself could feel that. There was just a rise in user behavior that we needed to have a reset.”
Reig said Revel will also begin using GPS to automatically identify when riders are going the wrong way on one-way streets or driving in parks or on highways. Riders will be suspended automatically, he said.
Revel will also be selling helmets online to consumers, in case they are uncomfortable wearing the Revel shared helmets during the pandemic. The company said it cleans its helmets every one or two days, and offers helmet birds for extra protection.
Reig said the company would also add an app feature for reporting bad behavior with Revel mopeds. A person does not have to be a registered Revel user to report a violation, he said.
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