NYC must stop treating cyclists like a special class — for everyone’s safety

A cyclist’s lawsuit against the NYPD over unwarranted tickets exposes the City Council’s “go with the walk” law for the terrible policy it is.

Oliver Casey Esparza’s federal lawsuit claims the NYPD is wrongly handing out tickets to cyclists who run red lights — because a 2019 law made it legal for bikes to cross with pedestrian walking signals, which change before the light for vehicles turns green.

Beyond seeking damages, the suit demands the NYPD train officers on the rules; Esparza claims one cop told him he was “99% sure” Esparza was wrong about the law when he issued the cyclist a ticket.

No wonder: The law defies common sense.

Oliver Casey Esparza’s federal lawsuit claims the NYPD is wrongly handing out tickets to cyclists who run red lights. RCF / MEGA

It allows bikes to go when the pedestrian “walk” sign is on, unless there’s a bike-lane sign or light that’s still red; it also says cyclists must still yield to pedestrians — many of whom won’t know that bikes can cross before cars.

How is that safer than bikes simply not running red lights?

Even with true bicycles, pretending that cyclists are quasi-pedestrians is dangerous — but with an estimated 65,000 e-bikes on New York City streets, it’s downright insane.

From 2020 to 2023, e-bike crashes killed 22 people and injured 2,172.

Too many cyclists treat traffic laws like suggestions, riding on sidewalks, driving the wrong way down streets and barreling through crosswalks without stopping.

And progressive leaders enable them: Rules like “go with the walk” hand cyclists special privileges.

Notably, Esparza’s lawsuit complains that tickets against cyclists increased “dramatically” in this year’s first quarter.

Right — because the city ramped up road enforcement in response to 2024’s highest-in-a-decade traffic deaths, 127 in the first six months of last year alone, 61 of them pedestrians.

Since then, traffic deaths have plummeted to their lowest since 2018.

Better enforcement keeps drivers, cyclists and pedestrians safer — laws that say cyclists only have to follow some rules for vehicles do not.

Esparza is technically right to cry foul; cyclists shouldn’t get a ticket when they’re not breaking the law.

But the law itself should go — along with the city’s insistence on treating cyclists as a special class.