The NYPD's controversial new strategy of criminalizing low-level traffic offenses by cyclists and e-bike riders with court summonses has unleashed the worst instincts of individual cops, according to people who've received tickets — including one person who claims a cop clearly entrapped him.
In just one week since the new policy started, cops have given out criminal summons to cyclists for wearing headphones and stopping just ahead of a painted stop line at intersections — even entirely ginning up offenses on the spot.
The enforcement policy, which Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch claim is part of a strategy to target "quality of life" offenses, turns infractions like breaking red lights and riding the wrong way from a mere traffic ticket to a criminal court summons.
The shift has already drawn scathing criticism from advocates, lawmakers and legal experts, who questioned whether the Department could even singlehandedly increase a traffic ticket, which carries a fine that can be paid or contested online, into a mandatory criminal court appearance that carries the risk of a criminal record.
Is it Entrapment?
One cyclist said he was coming off the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan on Friday when a cop stationed at the western terminus stepped directly into the bike path, forcing him to swerve around and come a stop.
"I lock eyes with him, and he decides to walk right into the bike lane while staring at me," said the cyclist, who asked to remain anonymous. "I slam on the brakes, I go around him which means I have to go into the opposite lane."
The rider shouted at the cop because the law enforcement official almost caused him to crash, and the officer accused him of being "disorderly."
The cop then charged him with disorderly conduct and failing to yield to a pedestrian — the pedestrian being the cop himself. When the cyclist protested that he was not being disorderly, the officer threatened to add on the arrestable offense of obstruction of governmental administration, because he claimed he had been trying to stop another e-biker and when the cyclist blocked him from doing so.
The cyclist said he did not see any e-biker. Rather, the cop instigated the entire interaction on purpose, he said.
“That’s the most insane shit I’ve ever heard," he told Streetsblog. "We locked eyes completely, and it was so deliberate. It couldn’t have been more deliberate. It was so obvious that his intention was to make me have an interaction of some sort, or to fuck with people."
Fabrications?
Another rider got a criminal court summons on Sunday while riding along Broadway in Brooklyn, despite stopping for the red light, but the cop accused him of crossing the painted stop line.
"They’re making a big deal about a bike going through a red — when I didn’t even go through a red," said Dwayne Cullen. "That makes me frightened, because they’re kind of just doing whatever they want."
Overzealousness?
A cyclist in Manhattan got a criminal court summons last week for biking while wearing two headphones on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.
It's against the law to have more than one headphone in while riding, but the person, who asked to be identified as Manny said he was well able to hear his surroundings because he was wearing non-noise-canceling wired headphones.
"I think it’s reasonable to enforce the traffic violations … but the headphones ... does seem kind of overbearing," said Manny. "It’s kinda crazy."
Ignorance?
One woman, who asked to remain anonymous due to her pending court case, got one of the new criminal court summonses for running a red light on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, even though she entered the intersection on the pedestrian signal, which has been legal since 2019.
"I know for a fact I definitely went through that walk signal," the cyclist said.
She was riding uptown when cops drove up in their squad car and dangerously swung in front of her and into the bike lane. The officers gave her a ticket with a court appearance for failing to obey a red light.
She said she even showed the officers the city's own website that specifically says riders can legally "go with the walk."
"He kind of just shrugged," she told Streetsblog. "[I] realized I’m pretty much a guinea pig in this new pilot program."
So what's going on?
The NYPD's enforcement blitz officially began a week ago, but officers have already been ramping up their work against cyclists, e-bike riders, and people on e-scooters for months, data show.
Traffic tickets more than doubled in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same time last year, according to police data. Ticketing had dropped off after 2020, but is now surging back to pre-Covid levels.
And a map of NYPD data put together by Reddit user Tender_Combo shows that the cops focus on north-south corridors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Drilling down, it's easy to see that enforcement is inconsistent, with cops in different precincts interpreting the law in different ways:
- Cops on the East Side of Manhattan write a lot of cyclist failure-to-yield to pedestrian summonses.
- Cops prowling the western end of Northern Boulevard in Queens like to give tickets for covering both ears with earphones and not having a bell.
- Cops in Bushwick prefer the summons, "Disobeyed traffic device while operating bicycle."
Feeling safe yet?
The NYPD has declined repeated requests to share any data about the new policy, or why its officers are cracking down on cyclists more. But Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander blasted the police sweeps, calling on the city to instead more tightly regulate delivery app companies and allowing cyclists to use red lights as stop signs and stop signs as yields — a policy also known as the Idaho Stop.
"This performative crackdown on largely law-abiding cyclists puts hard-working New Yorkers in harm's way while doing nothing to make our streets safer," Lander wrote on X. "Instead of unsustainable and overly punitive measures like this, we need real solutions like the Idaho Stop, strict regulations on delivery app companies that incentivize reckless riding, and restorative justice-oriented interventions like the Driver Accountability Program for e-bike and moped riders."
It's also unclear why the NYPD would prioritize e-bike riders when they account for such a tiny a fraction of the city's traffic violence, as Streetsblog has long documented.
In 2024, 37 pedestrians were injured in the entire year in 179 reported e-bike collisions, the NYPD said. In that year, 9,610 pedestrians were injured overall, so e-bike riders caused just 0.4 percent of pedestrian injuries.
That pattern has continued in the first three months of this year, with one pedestrian injured by an e-bike rider, according to the NYPD. Over the same period, 2,271 were injured overall, so e-bike riders caused less than 0.04 percent of the reported pedestrian injuries.
The NYPD used to write criminal summonses to cyclists, but was forced to dramatically scale back the practice thanks to the City Council's passage of the Criminal Justice Reform Act in 2016, which aimed to under many of the harms caused by rampant criminalization of minor infractions like smoking in a park, having an open container of alcohol or littering.
It turned out, the summonses had a stench of racial profiling: The highest rates of summonses were in poor neighborhoods of color like Brownsville, Jamaica, the South Bronx, and East Harlem.
On Monday, Council Transportation Committee Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers told Streetsblog that she "would definitely love to do a hearing" on the new policy "to really understand and unpack what it means."
"I understand there's this feeling of lawlessness on the streets, but in terms of going through criminal court, I'm not sure why [the NYPD] would do something like that as opposed to giving a ticket."
Have you received a criminal summons while riding a bike? Streetsblog is collecting riders' stories. Please email us at tips@streetsblog.org. All identities will be withheld on request.
Update (Tuesday, May 6 at 2:30 p.m.): A previous version of this story mistakenly labeled a chart as showing criminal summonses. The offenses were traffic tickets, not criminal court summonses. Streetsblog regrets the error.
