Chair Feliz asks about challenges in moped enforcement

What are some of the challenges that the NYPD has had when it comes to enforcing the moped-related rules and seizing them if needed?

Well, I think, you know, we were talking before about the challenges with the e-bikes and sort of whether you can see being able to tell whether something is street legal.

So with mopeds, that actually is easier, right?

Because the mopeds, whether it's class A, class B, class C, those like motor vehicles or motorcycles, it actually is a class of motorcycle, which is a class of motor vehicle.

Has to be licensed, has to be registered, has to have a VIN.

So if you have a moped with no license or a license that's not a legit license, or if there is no VIN, or if it's not registered,

right, that's subject to, there's going to be enforcement action, you're going to have a summons subject to a seizure.

The challenge, Chair, which you alluded to, is to the extent you have mopeds taking off on us, right?

We have to be incredibly careful about that.

As you know, we tightened up our vehicle pursuit policy for all sorts of good reasons.

And so, you know, to the extent you have, you know, mopeds that are unlawful, that are moving or fleeing from us, that presents obviously very significant safety issues.

So, you know, a lot of that enforcement is going to be, you know, you're trying to engage with someone when they're stopped.

Right?

Or you have the moped on, you know, it's parked, it's on the street, it's attached to something, and then, you know, the officers are in a position to do the assessment as best they possibly can.

Is this a lawful moped without the danger that would come, obviously, with a pursuit?

Okay, and how heavy would you say, this is something that I actually saw about a year ago, I would see very often police officers driving around with a large van and also driving around looking for mopeds, and generally they would engage when they were parked.

And based on what I saw, they were very professional.

It was a very successful operation.

They were able to seize it without any incident.

Obviously, the mopeds were parked, and the owners were sometimes not even around.

How heavy would you say that operation is today compared to the last two years?

I'm not sure I have data right here on the number of such operations.

We certainly do that, and that can be a very safe and effective way to do it, right?

If we have a whole bunch of mopeds, for example, that are parked somewhere, we can bring a team there.

This could be an inspection in a store, obviously, but it could be out on the street.

That can be ideal because you don't have the safety issues with the pursuit, right?

You just have the Lopez there, it can be assessed.

We can make sure we have the right people there in terms of expertise, right?

Members of service who have done this before, who know what to look for.

We can have members of the legal bureau actually on scene sometimes to help with those assessments, make sure we're doing it exactly right.

So we certainly do those quite regularly.

And that is actually a very good example of something that can be in response to community complaints, right?

We hear about community complaints.

Hey, there are a whole bunch of illegal.

mopeds that are parked out here on the street or you know are here on the street okay we can get a team out there and make that assessment in a very safe and a very fair way

and we can look and see if we have data on the number of such operations I just don't have that here