- New York City roads are dangerous places for app-based delivery drivers on electric bikes and other micromobility vehicles.
- New York City's infrastructure is lagging behind, with few bike lanes or lanes reserved for mopeds or electric bikes.
- Advocates say both city governments and food delivery companies are to blame.
If you ordered takeout in New York City recently, a delivery driver likely brought your food to your door on an electric bike or moped.
But what you probably didn't consider when placing your order is that the person hand-delivering your dinner may be risking their life to get it to you.
In New York City, being a carless delivery worker is one of the most dangerous jobs in the city: There are currently more than 65,000 app-based restaurant delivery workers in the city, about 80% of whom use electric bikes or motorcycles.
The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection reported that the fatality rate for these workers was at least 36 deaths per 100,000 people from January 2021 to June 2022. That's more than five times the fatality rate of 7 deaths per 100,000 people for construction workers in New York City in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While most driver deaths are the result of traffic accidents, workers are also more likely to be victims of violent robberies.
App-based delivery drivers also experience disproportionate rates of serious injuries: A city report found that 28.7% of e-bike and moped drivers experienced injuries that forced them to miss work, lose consciousness, or seek medical attention. Complicating the issue is that many delivery drivers are immigrants, many of whom are in the country illegally, and therefore avoid reporting these crimes to police or seeking medical attention for fear of deportation.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, transportation and materials handling is the second-highest occupational fatality rate in the nation, behind farming, fishing, and forestry.
Inadequate infrastructure
More bikes and electric non-car vehicles on the road is a big win for the climate and road safety in general. More efficient, greener transportation means fewer cars and delivery trucks on the road, which is a good thing.
But New York City's infrastructure lags far behind. Roads are designed to move cars and trucks as quickly as possible, with little accountability for dangerous driving and almost no protected space for people traveling by bike or scooter. Bloomberg recently reported that only 3 percent of the city's roads have protected bike lanes and just 1 percent of intersections have red-light cameras.
Delivery drivers aren't the only New Yorkers at high risk of dying in traffic accidents: Bicycle fatalities overall hit a 24-year high in 2023. Most of the 30 cyclists killed in accidents last year were killed in collisions with cars (mostly trucks and SUVs) on roads without bike lanes, according to a New York Times analysis.
Without adequate safety infrastructure, bicyclists and other non-drivers will choose sidewalks where they may get in the way of pedestrians, or dangerous roads where cars and trucks can't compete.
The proliferation of delivery drivers riding e-bikes, scooters, mopeds and motorcycles also raises safety and quality of life issues for everyone else on the road.
In January, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the creation of a new Department of Sustainable Delivery tasked with regulating commercial delivery services that use bicycles and other ultra-small mobility vehicles.
The NYC Department of Transportation claims it is serious about keeping delivery workers and intermodal riders safe on the roads: A department spokesperson told Business Insider that the city built more bike lanes last year (32 miles) than all other major US cities combined.
But that's far short of the 50 miles of bike lanes the department set out to build last year, and it said it is also working to expand bike lanes in popular areas and increase the number of bus-mounted cameras that ticket drivers who block bike or bus lanes.
Safer streets activists say the city needs to do more to improve infrastructure: They want wider bike lanes, separate lanes for electric bikes and mopeds, and more charging stations for e-bikes.
“New York City is going backwards on road safety, and unless the City combines the proliferation of e-bikes and mopeds with improved infrastructure, dedicated e-bike lanes, investments in congested and shared streets, and accountability for food delivery companies, the number of deaths and injuries will continue to rise,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a statement to Business Insider.
There is little accountability
At the heart of their plight is app-based delivery workers' status as gig workers (contractors, not employees): Food delivery companies, including big names like Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash, aren't required to offer benefits, including health insurance, to them.
And they weren't required to pay drivers the minimum wage until the city implemented it for app-based restaurant delivery drivers last year: In April, the mayor announced a pay increase to $19.56 an hour, not including tips, a significant improvement from the $5.39 workers made on average per hour before the law went into effect.
Ligia Gualpa, executive director of the Worker Justice Project, a labor advocacy group, has charged that food delivery companies create unsafe working conditions by encouraging workers to deliver as many orders as possible as quickly as possible and to work in dangerous conditions, such as late at night or during storms. Delivery worker advocates hope a minimum wage would reduce those incentives.
“The No. 1 reason we've been advocating for fair wages in the app delivery industry is because a dignified wage actually translates to safety on the roads,” Guarpa, who was a driving force behind creating a minimum wage for app workers, told Business Insider. “A minimum wage means that when you get in your car to make a delivery, you can actually drive safely.”
A DoorDash spokesperson said the company offers workers' compensation insurance to all of its drivers and has a trust and safety team that supports them around the clock. Uber similarly asserted that the company is “committed to building innovative features, promoting safe behavior on the roads and working with safety experts to raise safety standards,” the spokesperson said.
Gualpa's group wants a number of other reforms to improve worker safety, including stronger worker protections, investment in infrastructure like bike lanes and bike parking, better education for workers, better connections to city resources and stricter enforcement of employer mandates.
Lander and Gualpa also want the companies to work together on creating “Deliverysta hubs” — converted stores or newsstands where workers can take breaks, charge their bikes, get training, and access city resources like health insurance. Gualpa said three hubs are currently planned: one near City Hall in lower Manhattan, one on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and one in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Ensuring the safety of delivery workers should be a top public priority, Guarpa said, and in fact, “New Yorkers are relying on app-based delivery workers to keep them safe and fed during this crisis,” he added.
Are you a delivery driver who uses an electric bike or moped? If you're interested in sharing your story, contact this reporter. erelman@businessinsider.com.
