Epstein asks public panel why most pedicab operators are unlicensed

Thank you.

So let me ask you a question.

Why do you think the vast majority of people in this industry are unlicensed?

And like, is there just a disincentive to get licensed?

Are you asking me?

Sure.

If anyone can answer.

Sorry, I apologize.

I just want to make sure.

So you hit it on the nail earlier that there's no incentive for anyone to really

tried to, when the pandemic happened, a lot of the enforcement fell away.

And so it made it more, people were encouraged by the fact that there was no enforcement to continue operating without a license and without insurance and without a lot of these other things that they're required to have.

So on top of that,

I sort of disagree with one of these CWP representatives about there being six insurance companies.

There's actually about two, three maximum.

One of them has just started opening up to us, but the price of that insurance is exorbitant, $5,000 or higher.

Per unit for a single year, which that's gone up about 90%.

Well, actually, 900% actually, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's about 10 times more than what it used to be.

And so it's made it much more difficult for legal operators to be able to obtain this.

But the fact that there was no enforcement also encouraged them to not bother to get those licenses.

I had a driver come up to me and told me that he stopped getting the license and the insurance about three years ago because he saw that there was no consequence for it, so what's the point?

So people on license, even if they're getting tickets, they're meaningless, basically?

Well, I think that there might be a disconnect sometimes between agencies in which one agency enforces a certain part and maybe the other agency doesn't really get that information in time.

So you're saying NYP?

PD doesn't do that kind of ticketing that's referenced.

They do.

It's just kind of a little disparate sometimes in the way they do it.

And I think one of the problems is they're not coordinating things.

As you just see from the DCWP, all the questions you're asking them, pretty much our NYPD, they don't have, for the most part, they don't have the answer.

Because one of the first problems we just kind of, when we created NYPA, is the coordinating.

They're not coordinating.

You ask NYPD, they say go to DCWP.

You go to them, they say go to NYPD.

And that's for two years now, we don't have an answer.

And to go back to just what Kenny said about insurance, about why this unlicensed thing is there now.

Before the COVID, pretty much the insurance was $600 for one unit.

But now we're almost close to $6,000.

And we don't know why.

We asked DCWP, no answer.

We asked anybody, no answer.

And now it keeps increasing.

You know, and I'm not defending driver or owners, but it could be one of the factors.

Because before COVID, 100% everybody was pretty much, you know, everybody has a license.

But then when you move from 600 to almost 6,000, that could be one of the problems.

You know, so, yeah.