A Times Square Cam discovery of pedicabs
- Saturday, November 22, 2008, 20:23
- 2,005 views
- 1 comment
I’ve done a little digging to see if I can learn more about those bicycles I saw people getting into the back of while viewing the times square cam on earthcam.com (more about this); and I’ve come up with the name “pedicab” thanks to an article written by Ned Crabb for The Wall Street Journal back in 2005 (article here). So I have the Times Square Cam and Ned Crabb to thank for my discovery of pedicabs.
I almost feel like an alien from another planet because it would seem that pedicabs weren’t invented yesterday. They’ve been around a while. They are more commonly known as richshaws, specifically ‘cycle rickshaws’, and you can find them throughout Europe, Asia and in some of the USA’s most populous cities.
Pedicab related articles
Out of curiosity I did look up pedicab related deaths because it seems to be a pretty high risk mode of travel based on what I saw viewing the Times Square Cam. I found a story about a Connecticut man named Peter Dzioba who died when the pedicab he and his wife were traveling in crashed into a van and scooter. The couple were celebrating their 25th anniversary. Interestingly there don’t appear to be very many news stories of deaths resulting from pedicab accidents.
Image: Cycles Maximus
kencameron said:
To the best of my knowledge there has only been 1 fatal accident in the United States that involved a pedicab (Peter Dzioba). There have been several non-fatal accidents(Jeff Uribe, Julie perry, etc). In almost all of these accidents, the pedicab was hit from behind by a car driven by a drunken driver.
If you or your other readers would like to read more about pedicab accidents and accident that killed Peter Dzioba you can read the articles that I have collected on my blog:
http://austinpedicab.org/category/seattle-accidents/
-Ken Cameron
Austin Texas
November 26th, 2008 at 12:47 pm