Chair Abreu asks how officers verify speed and wattage currently
Abreu asks how officers verify maximum speed and wattage of a device, and NYPD says they do not have technology to do that in the field.
How do officers verify the maximum speed and wattage of a device currently that they suspect of being?
Illegal.
Right.
We do not have technology that allows us to do that in the field.
There are times, right, we have, there are members of service, certain people on.
I got your answer on that.
I'll move to the next one.
How are enforcement officers instructed to treat devices that are designed to switch between a slower street legal mode and a higher speed unrestricted mode?
How are officers able to identify such devices that can change modes on the field?
A lot of these devices, they can switch.
And they can be controlled by an app.
They can be controlled physically.
How can you tell?
Right, and as I was trying to say before, there are members of service who have the expertise and the experience.
They will sometimes be able to recognize devices.
There are times when you can look online, sometimes, and determine, based on how it's advertised, what the capability is.
But to your point, it is true that
absent the experience and expertise, and given the fact that oftentimes how these things are advertised are not how they actually work in practice, without that, can someone just tell by looking at the e-bike what the maximum speed is?
No, the answer is no.
All right.
And the reason I ask that question is that despite the switching of the mode,
a dynamometer can still test for the wattage power of these devices.
So even if they can switch in mode, it can detect the power of the wattage so that folks don't try to circumvent a dynamometer.
And just to be clear, the dynamometer as a technology is able to figure out or determine that wattage.
There's no question that that could be very useful.
We do have, again, like on the front end, the sort of contracting process, which is incredibly important, has to be done with great care, obviously.
But then also, operationally, how would this work?
How would this actually work on the street?
And that's separate from utility.
And we can figure that out.