Brewer asks panel about pedicab battery fire risks

Thank you.

Councilmember Brewer?

Thank you for that question.

For whatever reason, the good news is that the pedicabs have not had fires in your apartments due to batteries.

And that's been mostly individuals.

What's the reason for that?

I mean, I don't think you've had any.

You don't bring the pedicab home.

Go ahead.

Explain.

So I know it's probably going to sound like I'm deriding them and stuff, but it's a hard truth.

A lot of the guys that work the street, they are, again, their number one thing is to get out there and work as long as possible, and they basically sometimes, you know, abuse their equipment.

And so what they care about is basically charging that battery as fast as possible.

And very often they basically plug the batteries into the same outlets.

They have very unsafe practices sometimes.

Or the batteries are defective or they buy a cheaper battery because it's about cost.

So nobody really does the research when it comes to this thing.

So this is part of the reason why some of the fires happened.

A lot of these things have been addressed.

And garages don't really allow anybody to charge their batteries in the garages anymore.

No one will do it.

But why has it happened in somebody's home?

I have no idea.

But it's probably because of that very same reason.

They finally started to wake up and do the right thing.

I think if we work on the industry as a whole, then licensing batteries will be the correct battery.

That's also part of the...

L certification really goes a long way with that.

Right.

You know, I personally have never, ever had an incident because I do my research and make sure that what I buy is high quality to make sure that I'm never going to have that issue because I never want to have my name attached to something like that,

which is part of something that I was concerned about when my bikes were actually confiscated.

When the officers took my bikes, the batteries were still connected, and I was really worried that when they ended up at 41st Street, they have a lot there where they keep the bikes, that they would react with the rain because I don't ride in the rain and I don't work the street.

So I was worried that it was going to rain that weekend and I was worried that it was going to have a reaction as it did on 48th Street.

There was a fire on 48th Street in an open air lot when someone left a defective battery in the rain, which reacted and then caused a major problem there.

Thank you.

And one more thing to just add to what Kenny said.

You know, outside right here, we have like a place where they're charging a bunch of, you know, battery and stuff.

I think this thing, this is not to us, it's not even an issue.

We're okay as an IPA, you know, our perspective, whatever the safety measures are available, we'll use that because our concern is pretty much the safety because we're all family members and stuff like that.

We care deeply about that.

So we're open to anything, you know, in order to make sure everybody's safe.