34-year-old Julie Perry, a vivacious marketing executive, used to host a weekly boating show on the internet. But today, Julie's once beautiful smile is now a paralyzed grimace.

"It's been devastating," she says. "When I smile you can really see it the most that the face is still paralyzed on the right side."

So what happened to Julie Perry that changed her life forever? She was a passenger in a pedicab, those bicycle powered taxis you see in big cities all across the country.

Julie was riding in a pedicab in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was crossing the Las Olas Boulevard Bridge when she was slammed by a hit and run driver from behind. The pedicab she was in had no lights or seatbelts.

"I was ejected from the vehicle and went head first into the bridge," says Perry.

And accidents like Perry's are happening all over the country. Passengers have been killed in Seattle and San Diego.  A bad accident this year in New York left four people seriously injured.

In New York just three years ago there were only 200 pedicabs. Now there are more than 1,000. Pop star Britney Spears recently boarded one with her kids for a ride through Central Park., and pedicabs were even featured in an episode of The Apprentice.

But during INSIDE EDITION's undercover investigation, time and again we saw pedicabs weaving in and out of congested Midtown Manhattan traffic.

Sometimes tempers flare when pedicabs have run-ins with other motorists. In one incident that was caught-on-tape, a pedicab driver and a taxicab driver throw punches.  They wrestle to the ground in the middle of traffic, and the pedicab driver even throws a trash can at the cabbie before getting back on his bike and peddling away on the sidewalk.

So what's it like being a passenger in one of these vehicles? INSIDE EDITION's Chief Investigative Correspondent Matt Meagher decided to find out. It was one close call after another. He experienced drivers breezing through red lights at some of the busiest traffic intersections in the United States, even though cops can ticket them.

Some chatted on cell phones while driving, and none had seatbelts.

"Where are your seatbelts?" Meagher asked one driver.
"Inside [the seat]," he answered.
"They don't do much good in there do they? How can I use seatbelts if they're inside?"

And another driver took him on a wild ride through heavy congestion.

"There were four or five times where I thought we were going to get hit," Meagher told him.
"You're right. Okay, I accept it because I made a mistake," the driver said.

A third driver just wasn't paying attention; he collided into a pedicab right in front of him.

The situation has gotten so out of control that the New York City  Department of Consumer Affairs is now inspecting pedicabs, and will soon require them to be equipped with seatbelts, lights, and turn signals.

"They will know the rules of the road and if they break those rules, they will be held accountable," says Elliot Mintz, the Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Julie Perry wishes there had been safety requirements in Fort Lauderdale when she climbed on board a pedicab. "My life has been altered tremendously from that night," she says.

Besides having no seat belts or lights, the pedicab Julie was riding in had no insurance. In addition to her physical injuries, she says she's been devastated financially.