Demand for food delivery has skyrocketed. So have complaints about some drivers

BOSTON — A soaring demand for food delivered fast has spawned small armies of couriers — and increasing alarm — in big cities where scooters, motorcycles and mopeds zip in and out of traffic and hop onto pedestrian-filled sidewalks as their drivers race to drop off salads and sandwiches. In a letter this week to food delivery companies DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber, Boston officials cited an “alarming increase in unlawful and dangerous operation of motorcycles, mopeds and motorized scooters” that they said put the drivers, other motorists and pedestrians “in imminent danger.” The letter alleged that some drivers were operating unregistered vehicles and breaking traffic laws, and warned of an imminent crackdown on the vehicles. “They have terrorized many of our pedestrians, particularly our senior and older adults,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday at an event in which motorized two-wheeled delivery vehicles were destroyed. “We are going to respect the law so that they let us work here.” Drivers of motorized two-wheeled vehicles are coming under much more scrutiny than was faced years ago by other gig workers in cars, such as Uber and Lyft drivers, because they can more easily violate traffic laws, said Hilary Robinson, an associate professor of law and sociology at Northeastern University. “I get frustrated when they don’t follow the traffic laws,” said Anne Kirby, a 25-year-old student having lunch in a Boston neighborhood within a few hundred feet of several scooters.