An accident involving an e-bike and a young girl in a protected bike lane in Brooklyn has renewed calls to advance legislation that would require e-bikes to be registered in the state of New York. 

On Sunday, a 3-year-old girl was struck by a passing e-biker after she ran from a double-parked car into the bike lane on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The girl, who was instantly knocked to the ground upon impact, suffered minor injuries to her stomach and remained hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital as of Monday night, according to published reports. The e-bike rider remained on the scene after the accident and was not arrested. 

Security footage of the accident set off a war of words between city officials and bike advocates over the presumed benefits of bike lanes and the proliferation of e-bikes.

A Democrat city council member, Lincoln Restler, reposted the video of the collision on his X account while also urging the New York City Department of Transportation to “install safety enhancements that are tailored to meet the needs of our community and protect the safety of our children.”

Mayor Adams fired back at Mr. Restler, posting on X, “Let’s be clear: @LincolnRestler never called for modifying or removing the protected bike lane on Bedford Ave. But when the people speak, we listen — with or without their councilman’s support.”

Mr. Restler responded on X, “Mayor – we all know you aren’t paying much attention to governing our City – but I have requested safety enhancements from DOT for months in private meetings and at public budget hearings.” Mr. Restler could not be reached for comment. 

Earlier in May, during hearing regarding the DOT’s $1.5 billion budget for 2026, Mr. Restler asked the DOT commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez, whether his agency is considering implementing additional safety measures for the Bedford Avenue bike lane.

“I think we all know that when protected bike lanes are installed, it makes streets safer for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, but we clearly need to do more in this community to make a difference,” Mr. Restler said during the hearing.

A former chief of staff to Mr. Adams, Frank V. Carone, disagreed with the city’s bike lanes-first approach to improving bicycle safety, writing on X that it’s now “time to reset the entire Bike infrastructure, which removes the presumption that they should be omnipresent.”

Since the protected bike lane was installed by the DOT in 2024, families in Williamsburg have urged the DOT to reroute part of the bike lane following similar accidents involving cyclists and children. On January 7, a child was hit by a cyclist while exiting a school bus.

The latest accident comes just weeks after the NYPD rolled out a controversial Quality of Life initiative to slap unruly e-bikers with criminal court summons. Since taking effect, the NYPD has issued more than 900 criminal court summons and counting, far exceeding the 553 it wrote for all of 2024.

“We have a serious crisis, a public health crisis, in New York City, with e-bikes and e-vehicles,” a council member, Robert Holden, a Democrat from Queens, told the Sun. 

In 2023, more than 7,200 people were injured in e-bike or scooter accidents, nearly 500 of whom were pedestrians. However,, as of April 30, e-bike-involved injuries have declined by 26 percent in 2025 compared to the same time period in 2024, according to a DOT spokesman.

“E-bike rider injuries are down 17 percent and e-bike-involved pedestrian injuries are down 47 percent,” the DOT press secretary, Vincent Barone, wrote in an email message to the Sun.

Mr. Holden is one of the sponsors of Intro 606, a city bill that would require e-bikes and other e-vehicles to be registered with the DOT and use license plates. A similar bill, “Priscilla’s Law,” named in honor of Priscilla Loke, a 69-year-old educator who was struck and killed by an e-bike rider in Chinatown in 2023, is under consideration by the New York State senate. 

Another public safety bill, Intro 0060, would ban e-scooters and e-bikes from city parks, ending a program the Department of Parks and Recreation first permitted in 2023. 

However, bike advocates and DOT officials have so far been cool to the idea of requiring license plates on e-bikes.

“Bike licensing has failed and been repealed in every major city that tried it — Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto. It’s ineffective, it’s a bureaucratic nightmare, and it would be doomed to fail in New York City just like it failed elsewhere,” the Transportation Alternatives associate director of digital media, Charlie Baker, said in an email to the Sun.

Last year, while testifying before the city council committee on transportation and infrastructure, Mr. Rodriguez said his agency was “concerned” by the idea of registering e-bikes. 

“The administration already has the tools to enforce against illegal behaviors; a license plate is not necessary for enforcement,” Mr. Rodriguez said during testimony. 

Mr. Holden criticized “clueless” Mr. Rodriguez for his refusal to heed repeated calls from politicians and activists alike to register e-bikes.

“It’s been one mess after another and people have lost their lives because of this,” Mr. Holden told the Sun. “The fact that Ydanis Rodriguez is not for this speaks volumes of who he is. He shouldn’t be commissioner of the DOT.”