The delivery vehicles being used in NYC are almost entirely e-bikes, so the expense is not as big as you might be thinking. It's certainly nothing close to the cost to gig workers for running an Uber car.
So does it include health and sick pay for when you get injured or older and you’re less mobile? Cycling all the time could be way more taxing than driving.
Of course it doesn't include any of that. It's "independent contracting".
Though keep in mind they're throttle e-bikes, so there isn't a lot of actual pedaling going on. And as far as accumulated workplace injuries go, merely riding a bike is pretty easy compared to a lot of blue collar work. No, I think what'd get you here is the crashes.
I wouldn’t discount the long term health costs of breathing exhaust fumes all day either. Even as a recreational cyclist or occasional commuter in NYC I noticed it.
How often are people on e bikes getting mowed down where you live? What kind of hellscape do you live in where cycling causes you to ingest more polluted air than sitting in your bioweapon-proof, hermetically-sealed, fart-fermenting 3000 kilo Tesla? Sheesh
I’m kinda joking, but I genuinely feel bad for people who live in places where cycling makes their health worse because of the air pollution. I had to deal with that situation a few summers ago when wildfires caused ash to rain from the sky and made the air quality shit. It felt like a low-level hell.
I'm not sure if you noticed that the GP wrote "e-bike". Yes, even riding a e-bike would be more taxing than driving for many, I would say that an e-bike is much less taxing than a regular bicycle.
The act of cycling shouldn't be any sort of problem. The accidents though are another story. The e-bikes are as silent as regular bikes but much faster.