Deadly crash on Queensborough Bridge was caused by rider of potentially illegal scooter 23%
By Josephine Stratman69% Kerry Burke34% Thomas Tracy41% Emma Seiwell50%
5/29/2026, 9:11:10 PM
Topics: Crime And Public Safety
BS Summary: This article contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Framing Effect, and Availability Heuristic, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 19.8% saturation with 161 hits. Analysis detected 1,511 faulty-reasoning hits from 814 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.6% and a BS Rank of 23% (15,843 of 20,540 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 77.10% of the article peer group.
The fatal head-on collision on the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge that left two dead was caused by the driver of a potentially illegal scooter as a new debate erupted across NYC on how to crack down on stand-up devices that can hit speeds in excess of 50 mph, the Daily News has learned.
Francis Delvalle, 39, was riding a Teverun Blade GT II motorized stand-up scooter across the Ed Koch Bridge’s northern outer roadway bicycle lane, heading west at about 8:20 a.m.
Thursday when police said he failed to navigate the path and collided with Dmytro Stechenko, who was riding a pedal bike in the opposite direction.
Both men suffered extensive injuries in the crash, cops said.
Medics rushed the two to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens where they died.
It was not immediately disclosed how fast the vehicles were going, but the force of the impact was so severe Stechenko’s bike was ripped in half, pictures of the scene show.
The model Delvalle was riding is advertised as capable of reaching speeds up to 53 mph.
“This terrible tragedy is a grim reminder that illegal, high-speed micro-mobility devices, like the stand-up e-scooter involved in this incident, are dangerous and have no place on our roadways or bike paths,” Jeremy Edwards, a spokesman for Mayor Mamdani, said.
“The Mamdani administration will continue to work to remove these illegal devices from our streets and bring accountability to micro-mobility use.”
A Woodside resident, Delvalle was on his way to work when the crash occurred, according to his son.
“He was a good man.
A very good man,” said the victim’s son, who refused to share his name.
“We’re still grieving.”
Stechenko, 35, lived in Long Island City and was a software engineer at Meta, according to his LinkedIn page.
Longtime friend Yukiko Kurashima was left heartbroken when she heard about Stechenko’s death.
“Everybody loved him.
He was from Ukraine, and he’s been in NY for five years,” she said.
“I cannot believe this.”
City council members Friday discussed how best to put the brakes on illegal micro-mobility devices on city streets.
“Recklessly driving mobility devices creates foreseeable dangers: accidents and injuries.
For too long, this behavior has been normalized and treated as acceptable,” Councilmember Oswald Feliz, who chairs the Council’s public safety committee, told the Daily News.
New laws to regulate the sale of devices capable of reaching high speeds were among the possibilities discussed, the committee chair added.
“We must do more to ensure these devices are used safely, and must also do more to ensure we enforce the laws already on the books,” Feliz said.
“These accidents are preventable.”
A new piece of legislation, known as the “Ride Safe, Ride Right Bill” that would prohibit the sale of Class 3 e-bikes, which can go up to 28 mph, in New York City was introduced to the City Council in January and is currently being reviewed in the committee on consumer and worker protection.
City law restricts stand-up e-scooters to a speed of 15 mph, the same speed limit applied to both traditional bikes and e-bikes.
Under state law, any scooter capable of speeds above 20 mph is illegal for street use, regardless of whether its rider stays below the speed limit.
The Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge takes commuters from the East Side of Midtown Manhattan over Roosevelt Island into Long Island City, Queens.
A worker at Stechenko’s luxury high-rise recalled seeing him set out for a bike ride early Thursday morning.
“I saw him leave out of here this morning.
He was on his speed bike.
It was one of those expensive ones,” said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Later, the police came, and they had his wallet.
That’s how they ID’d him.
They said it was a collision on the bridge.”
Stechenko lived with his wife, the worker said.
“She left with (police) and hasn’t been back,” the worker said.
“He was a nice guy, mostly kept to himself.
It’s sad.”
Attempts to reach the families of Stechenko and Delvalle were unsuccessful Friday.
An email to Meta was also not returned.
Last year, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch ordered a crackdown on speeding and reckless e-bike riders in bike lanes.
Those caught violating the law would receive a criminal court summons, a move that quickly drew backlash from the cycling community and city delivery workers who use e-bikes.
City officials said the crackdown, which Mamdani rescinded in March, was only for e-bikes.
High velocity micro-mobility devices like one used in Thursday’s crash was always illegal in city bike lanes and those caught using them will continue to receive criminal court summonses, officials said.
According to city data, including Thursday’s bridge collision, five people have died this year while riding stand-up motorized scooters and three have died while riding traditional bikes.
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