Very sad new: Michelle was lockdown by a car before getting him to the hospital he gave up due to….

A story in The New York Times last week about rising cyclist fatalities in New York City can be read in two ways.

The bottom line is that the number of people killed riding bikes in the city is up — a lot. There were 30 cyclist deaths in 2023, up from less than 20 in 2022 and the city’s highest total in decades.

That would seem to be a cause for alarm, given how much New York (like other cities, including Boston) is encouraging bike ridership.

But the number of bike trips is rising so fast that the actual rate of fatalities and injuries is falling, “suggesting that riding a bicycle in New York City has become safer over the long term,” the Times article said.

Obviously, any fatalities are terrible, and this uptick is bad news. But those with a glass-half-full mindset could argue it’s a predictable consequence of a generally good thing — more people getting on bikes.Good luck getting New Yorkers to see it that way, though.

People tend not to think in the technocratic language of rates and trend lines. For evidence, look no further than the New York City subways, which are now patrolled by armed National Guard members in response to a perception of rising crime — even though crime has actually declined since the pandemic.

Electric bikes drove the increase and were involved in 23 of those deaths. New York — and Boston, and every other city seeking to encourage cycling — needs to get real about e-bikes before they discredit cycling more generally. Whether that’s by requiring licenses and registration to ride e-bikes, mandating helmets, or limiting their speeds (something New York officials have said they will do for ride-share bikes), cities have tools at their disposal. Maybe it’s time to start using them.

Sometimes the debate over urban cycling safety in the UK resembles one strand of thought concerning global warming: the fervent hope that new that technology could save governments from making low-tech but politically difficult decisions.

There is nothing wrong with radar systems that warn road users when bikes and lorries get too close. Given a choice between trucks having the devices or not, I imagine most cyclists would choose the former. But to an extent this isn’t the point.

The Netherlands and Denmark, mass cycle cultures where people of all ages ride to work, the shops or school as a matter of routing.