Two years ago, beneath the cold March skies in Shadwell, a group of delivery riders gathered outside a scorched block of flats. We stood in silence, listening to one of our own speak with grief and fury. His home had been reduced to ash, and with it, he had lost his close friend, Mizanur Rahman—a father of two, and a fellow gig worker. The culprit? A lithium battery from a modified e-bike that had exploded in the night.
The pain we felt that day was raw. But what cut even deeper was the silence that followed. No headlines. No public outrage. No promises of reform. The screams from that flat were absorbed into the void, dismissed without consequence.
Since then, e-bike fires have grown terrifyingly common across the capital. The London Fire Brigade now attends such a blaze once every 2.5 days. Earlier this month, 11 people were injured when another e-bike fire tore through flats in East London. Yet again, the city barely blinked.
Why? Because the victims are usually delivery riders—migrants, low-paid gig workers surviving on the edges of society. People like Mizanur, and like me.
We ride for platforms that pay pennies per delivery, pushing us into dangerous behaviours to make ends meet. To meet the quotas, riders run red lights, ride on pavements, and crucially, modify their bikes. DIY kits offer speed boosts, but they come with a deadly risk. Buying a regulation e-bike can cost thousands, a luxury few of us can afford.
And once off the roads, we often return to overcrowded and unsafe homes. The Right to Rent legislation has driven many undocumented or marginalised workers into the hands of rogue landlords, with no safety standards and no recourse. Mizanur’s death was not just a tragic accident—it was the inevitable result of systemic neglect.
These blazes are not isolated incidents. They are the product of an exploitative system, designed to squeeze maximum profit out of minimum protection. And yet, the response from the city has been indifference. The media shrugs. The politicians look away. Fires rage through people’s homes, and London carries on, as if those affected were invisible.
This isn’t just about a few faulty batteries. This is a public health crisis. The failure of these delivery platforms to provide safe, liveable wages is now threatening lives—not just on the roads, but in residential buildings across London.
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Let’s be clear: responsibility lies squarely with the apps. If they refuse to pay workers fairly, then they must at least be held accountable for the consequences. Riders shouldn’t be forced to gamble with their lives just to survive another week. These companies should be required to provide or subsidise safe, regulation-compliant e-bikes, and contribute to rider safety initiatives.
Increasing pay would do more than provide dignity—it would allow riders to stop cutting corners just to get by. And it would reduce the pressure to modify unsafe bikes or live in illegal, firetrap flats.
Londoners must shed their indifference. We cannot accept a city where tragedy only matters when the victims look like us or speak like us. If we fail to act, these fires will keep coming, with more lives lost—needlessly, tragically, and predictably.
This is no longer just a matter of workplace exploitation. It’s a matter of life and death. If London wants to call itself a just, modern city, then it’s time to care—about all its people, not just the privileged few.
