u/lhorace

So, we had heavy rain, flood like, and it shined. The bike that is, I am liking it day by day but it's rusting. I usually throttle and then pedal because it has some weight. We have frequent weather down pour. Sudden down pour and it stops. So I decided not to throttle and peddle uphill with just muscle because there is lag and I wanted to test, I had the gear at the lowest rung, it skipped I think. What you guys think?

Bought this phone secondhand through Amazon. Tier one T-Mobile support tells me the phone is unlocked, but I can't add an eSIM, which tells me it's actually still locked. When I got bumped to tier two, they flat out refused to unlock it because I'm not the original account holder on the line it was tied to.

Amazon already refunded me for the phone, but I still want to get it working since it's not stolen and it's paid off. Going to try a physical SIM next just to confirm it really is a lock issue and not something else.

This is exactly why I think it should be illegal for carriers to keep a paid-off, non-stolen phone locked. If the original owner already paid it off, the carrier has no financial stake left, they're just gatekeeping usable hardware. It kills the secondhand market and pushes perfectly good phones toward e-waste for no reason other than red tape.

Anyone dealt with this before? Is there a way around the "original account holder" wall, or is this phone basically stuck?

EDIT: Amazon already refunded the phone and let me keep it. Good news, the physical SIM slot still works and I have service. It's only the eSIM slot that appears to be unlocked. I'll do more research to find out if there's anyway to unlock eSIM. For now, I am good

EDIT: I was able to add Visible via eSIM using their app. So eSIM isn't locked, I just can't add eSIM via QR code

I know this sub leans heavy on complaints, so I wanted to share the other side for once. Today I got two $10 tips on what's been a slow early week, and it made me think about how good UberEats has actually been to me.

My AR sits around 20 percent. I'm not Gold or Platinum, I'm just picky about what I take, mostly to avoid the shit orders. Even with that low AR I'm still making good money, and my numbers are solid, 96 percent rating and 82 percent on time.

I work Center City Philly, what most people call downtown, and honestly I stay in that area more for the interactions than the tips. This gig is extra income for me, not something I depend on, so I can afford to be selective and still enjoy it.

Stack orders are the one thing that gets under my skin. Busy days they offer $7, slow days $5. When one order in a stack takes too long, the advice is to cancel it so the last customer doesn't get cold food, and I do that, it's the right call. But canceling tanks the value of the whole trip, so I end up riding around annoyed even though I know I made the right move.

I used to think a lot of merchants were rude until I realized why. It's really only a few, maybe 10 percent since I don't do a huge volume of orders. Some drivers walk in, say an order is theirs, and the restaurant hands it over assuming it's right, then they never actually deliver it, straight up stealing it, and they're rude about it too. That burns merchants and makes them defensive with everyone after. I always confirm the order with them before I take it, some seem surprised that I do that, others don't seem to care either way. But it's made a real difference overall, some merchants and I do small talk now like regulars.

Customers too, most interactions are good. Had one lady come to the door in her robe, which caught me off guard, but I didn't let it show and just handled the drop off like normal.

On the flip side, I'm at risk of losing my spot on GrubHub's waitlist since I haven't been active enough there, and I'm on the fence about picking up DoorDash since they load you up with miles and don't seem to care about AR the way UberEats does.

Overall, between the money, the rating, and the people, this sub could use a little more balance. Not every day is a disaster.

Time Period	Primary Policy Focus	Specific Enforcement Volumetrics	Systemic Public Safety Outcome
Q1 2024	Strategic Patrols & Visible Presence	47,000+ Code of Conduct violations cited	45% decrease in serious crime YoY; robberies fell from 102 to 34
1H 2025	Targeted Fare Enforcement Surge	4,366 fare evasion citations issued (+74% YoY)	Crime drops across 7 of 8 serious categories
Q3 2025	Hot-Spot Enforcement Blitzes	6,300+ fare citations issued YTD (+47% YoY)	10% drop in serious crime; >700 wanted individuals arrested
Full Year 2025	Systemwide Enforcement Escalation	Fare enforcement +48%; QoL enforcement +12%	6% drop in serious crime; gun violence reduced by 33%
Q1 2026	Target Hardening & Dedicated Details	Combined gate phase-in & station details	30% drop in serious crime; MFL [L] line crime down 42%
Q2 2026	Maximum Police Force Staffing	220 sworn officers; smoking citations +27%	21% drop in serious crime; aggravated assaults down 40%

I was told third party apps don't show that

I don't get a lot of stacked orders, but when I do, I'm seeing a pattern. Today I arrived, checked my phone to confirm I was at the right address, then told the customer I needed his PIN, mainly so I wouldn't have to take my phone off my bike again.

He got angry and said "give me my food." I told him people steal food, and I was right there in front of him so that wasn't a concern. He said it again, "give me my food," then he asks "is it your job to deliver the food?" I gave him the food. He still never gave me the PIN. I told him he'd never see me again.

This is the second time I've had an angry customer over this. Makes me wonder if the app just doesn't tell customers we're on a stacked order at all, and they think we're stalling for no reason.

Does the app actually show customers that we're picking up another order, or are they left in the dark?

I keep seeing comments treating rudeness as just part of the culture here, the same way people talk about New York. Curious if people think Philly actually shares that same edge, or if it's a lazy comparison. Feels like a stretch to say ignoring people or being short with strangers is just "how it is" here without pushing back on it a little.

EDIT I mean NYC whoops

SEPTA should be free. People are already not paying, whether through fare evasion or because Republicans in Harrisburg won't fund the system properly. If the fares aren't being collected either way, the fight over enforcement is missing the point. Some folks want to crack down harder on fare evasion instead. That still doesn't fix the funding problem. Make it free and stop pretending the current system is working.

SEPTA gets a big chunk of its budget from state, local, and federal subsidies already, and fare revenue only covers a portion of operating costs. On top of that a large number of riders aren't paying anyway between fare evasion and unenforced turnstiles. So the money being collected from fares is already a fraction of what it would be if everyone paid, and a lot of resources go into fare enforcement, gates, cameras, and fines that could just get folded into the subsidy that already exists. If ridership isn't really paying for itself through fares as it stands, why not make it free and put those enforcement resources into service frequency and reliability instead. Curious what others think, especially anyone who has looked at the actual fare recovery numbers.

EDIT Edit: A few people pointed out that the state just won't fund this, which is fair, Pennsylvania has a lot of competing demands on its budget. But that raises the real question of why the state should be the one responsible for closing SEPTA's funding gap in the first place. Southeastern PA generates a huge share of the state's economic activity and tax base, so this isn't really the state doing the region a favor, it's the state reinvesting in the area that funds a lot of its budget to begin with.

EDIT 2 Some people said if riders actually paid the fare they'd care more about the system, like paying in gives you more of a stake in it. So what's the answer then, fine people who don't pay, or throw them in jail over a bus fare? That doesn't seem like a real solution to a funding problem.

My old ebike from 2010 had a distinct whine when the throttle kicked in, something that actually stood out. My current ebike doesn't have that anymore, it's just a generic whine that sounds like every other ebike and scooter I hear on the street these days. Philly has a heavy ebike and scooter scene, so I'm curious if others here notice the same thing, like older motors had more character while newer ones all blend into the same sound. Would be cool if motor sound was more distinct again instead of everything sounding identical.

Before guaranteed tips existed in my market my Uber Eats account was constantly on the verge of deactivation. Customer service rating was around 70 percent, acceptance rate was around 20 percent, and on time rate was around 30 percent. A big reason those ratings were so low is that I was accepting orders where I would drop off six orders and only make six dollars total. It did not seem worth it, so I shifted my focus to DoorDash and stopped caring whether my Uber Eats account got deactivated.

Once guaranteed tips came to my market I decided to give Uber Eats another shot. At first I wasn't making any money, but out of nowhere Uber Eats gave me Platinum status for three weeks, then Gold status after that. I don't know what prompted it since my ratings were still bad at the time. Once that period ended I went back to normal status.

It took about two and a half months to rebuild my ratings. With help from some local Uber Eats delivery people I was able to fine tune my filters so pickup and drop off don't take long. Customer service rating is now at 94 percent, but my on time rate is still stuck around 77 percent.

Has anyone else run into this? Curious what else might be affecting the on time number even after tightening up pickup and drop off times.

My old ebike from 2010 had a distinct whine when the throttle kicked in, something that actually stood out. My current ebike doesn't have that anymore, it's just a generic whine that sounds like every other ebike and scooter I hear on the street these days. Philly has a heavy ebike and scooter scene, so I'm curious if others here notice the same thing, like older motors had more character while newer ones all blend into the same sound. Would be cool if motor sound was more distinct again instead of everything sounding identical.

Picked up an order from Wawa the other night. Bags of ice, going to someone I didn't know. I ride a bike for deliveries, milk crate on the back, so before I even left the store I asked the employee how big the bags were to make sure I could actually carry them. They showed me, I said no problem, and headed out.

My filters are set tight (seven dollar minimum, three fifty per mile, two mile max), so this was a short ride. About halfway there it got noticeably dark for a July evening in Philly. I clocked it as strange but didn't think much of it and kept riding.

We've had some rough weather lately, flood warnings one week, high heat the next, and a lot of downed trees. Got to the address and had to pull out my flashlight just to read the house numbers. An elderly woman came out to meet me. She saw the ice and said this was her order. While we were exchanging it I noticed she had candles going inside. Asked if the power was out. She said yes, twenty four hours at that point.

That's when it clicked for me. It wasn't just her block, it was a significant part of the city. Traffic lights were off on my way there and I hadn't even registered why. I didn't say anything to her about it, but in that moment it hit me that if I could go back and redo it, I would have bought the ice myself and covered whatever she paid on top, the delivery fee, the tip, all of it, just to make that one for free on my end.

Curious if anyone else here has had a run like this. Not asking if you'd work for free as a policy, just wondering if a specific delivery ever made the money feel beside the point.

Edit: A few people are reading this as too rosy for this sub, so I want to be upfront. This is a gig job for me to make extra money, not my main income, so I don't carry the same financial pressure a lot of you are dealing with day to day. That's exactly why I don't let this job get to me the way it seems to for people relying on it to survive. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to feel about their own situation, this was just one moment on one delivery that stuck with me, nothing more.

This puzzles me allot.

I was hoping to avoid a long essay. If you reach a customer and it says both. Is what puzzles me.

does PA's "motor alone" ebike language actually cover pedal assist above 20 mph, or just throttle-only

Trying to nail down exactly what Pennsylvania's ebike law does and doesn't prohibit, and I think the wording leaves more open than people assume.

The statute caps speed at 20 mph "on motor power alone" on level ground. That phrase is doing a lot of work. If I'm pedaling and the motor is assisting, is the motor operating "alone," or am I contributing to that speed too. A defense reading of the plain text could argue that "alone" means solely motor-generated, without any pedaling input, so pedal assist above 20 mph on level ground wouldn't fall under that specific prohibition since the motor isn't acting by itself.

The counterargument, and probably the one a prosecutor would raise, is that the law means the motor is capable of contributing to speeds over 20 mph regardless of whether you're also pedaling, and that pedaling alongside it doesn't exempt you. Traffic court doesn't have room to weigh intent or interpretation freely, it has to apply the statute's literal wording, so it could easily side with that reading. If that happens, an appeal would be the path to actually get a higher court to address whether the prosecutor's interpretation only accounted for two words of the sentence rather than the full sense of it. That doesn't guarantee a win, but it's the mechanism for resolving the ambiguity for real.

Same open question applies to the downhill scenario. The statute specifies "level ground," and doesn't mention grade at all. Silence on downhill use doesn't mean it's automatically legal either. It just means that specific case isn't addressed in the text.

So the two questions I keep coming back to: is pedal assisting above 20 mph on level ground illegal under this law, and is throttle or motor assist above 20 mph on a downhill grade illegal. Neither seems clearly answered by the statute as written, and I'm curious if anyone here has run into a citation, a court case, or has more insight into how PA traffic courts actually interpret this.

EDIT: One more thing I want to ask. My understanding is that using public roads is a privilege, not a constitutional right, which means the government has fairly wide latitude to regulate how ebikes and cyclists use them. If that's true, does that mean courts are more likely to read ambiguous language, like "motor alone" or "level ground," in favor of the state, since there's no competing constitutional right in play. Curious if anyone with legal background can speak to how that privilege versus right distinction actually plays out for ebike and cycling cases.

before anyone jumps on this: i'm not saying ebikes should be banned or that riders are doing anything malicious. i ride one every day for work. this is about what the actual PA statute says, not my opinion on whether it's a good law.

did some digging this week and it turns out a lot of the ebikes rolling around philly, mine included, don't actually meet pennsylvania's legal definition of a bicycle. PA doesn't use the class 1/2/3 system most other states use. we have one single definition under Act 154 of 2014 (75 Pa.C.S. §102): motor 750 watts or less, bike under 100 lbs, capped at 20 mph on motor power alone, and working pedals. there's no class 3 in this state at all, period.

if a bike goes over on any one of those specs, it's not legally a bicycle anymore, it becomes a motor-driven cycle, which already requires a license, registration, and insurance under existing law. that's the part that matters most to me: we don't need brand new ebike laws in PA. the framework for dealing with non-compliant bikes already exists, it's just not enforced or widely known.

if you do get pulled over on a bike that's out of spec, traffic court has almost zero discretion. they're bound to the plain text of the statute, so if the bike doesn't meet the four criteria, you lose. appealing to a higher court gives you more room to argue, but it's a real long shot, not a guaranteed win.

not trying to scare anyone off riding. just think more of us should actually know the law before we're stuck arguing with a cop or a judge about it.

I posted here a while back trying to gather opinions on e-bikes, since this sub is more geared toward regular cycling and I was curious what people here thought. A few of the replies made it clear people didn't know what PA law actually says about e-bikes, e-scooters, and mopeds since they're all treated completely differently under the vehicle code. Reddit doesn't let you add a body to a post after the fact if you left it blank originally, so rather than leave that thread with bad info sitting in it, I'm posting the breakdown separately. This is straight from the PA vehicle code, not my interpretation of it.

Going through the actual law surprised me. To legally count as a regular bicycle in PA, an e-bike has to have working pedals, weigh 100 lbs or less, and the motor can't exceed 750 watts, capped at 20 mph on motor power alone. If the throttle can push it past 20 mph without pedaling, or the motor's over 750W, it's no longer a "bike" in the eyes of the law, it becomes a moped or motor-driven cycle, which means a license, registration, and in some cases insurance. And stand-up e-scooters are effectively banned from streets and sidewalks statewide since they can't be registered or pass inspection. If anyone wants to push back on any of that, take it up with the state, not me. I'm just reporting what the law says.

I was listening to a comedian talk about a court case involving Afroman and some Ohio sheriff's deputies who sued him for defamation after he made a diss track about a raid on his home. A jury decided he hadn't defamed them. This obviously happened in Ohio, but it got me wondering, if Philly police got mocked in a viral song after something similar, do you think they'd do the same thing and sue, or let it go?