Boston Globe Editorial, November 8, 1997
The recent tragic accident in which School Committee member William Spring was seriously injured by a bicycle courier has touched a nerve in Boston, where bike messengers have become a menace as well as a convenience for residents and workers downtown.
Couriers operate in a high-pressure business where speed is at a premium, working for commissions as independent contractors with no benefits. This can encourage reckless riding, and indeed, a culture of risk-taking has developed that attracts thrill-loving bikers to these jobs. Hundreds of fines have been levied for infractions of the rules of the road, but police report that the number of accidents involving cyclists remains high.
New approaches are needed. First, though Boston has taken some steps to regulate the industry by requiring licenses for cyclists, little has been done to ensure that messenger services are providing the training in safe cycling that the law requires. If the companies were held accountable for their employees, perhaps through a system of progressive fines for each infraction, they might ease up on their demands for speed. Also, the current license requirement that messengers sign a declaration of familiarity with the rules of the road should be replaced by a written test.
Even more promising is the reaction by John Hamill, president of Fleet Bank, who plans to bring business leaders together to discuss the problem. As the heads of the corporations that fuel the messenger business, they have the power first to refuse to hire unlicensed messengers, and second to pressure the services to provide working conditions that will reduce the premium for recklessness. Treating messengers as employees instead of independent contractors would help.
No array of measures will eliminate all collisions, and those that address the messenger services will not reduce the hazards experienced by recreational cyclists or pedestrians. But better regulation, more responsibility by the companies, and continued vigilance by police may save Boston's streets from descending into anarchy.
This story ran on page A16 of the Boston Globe on 11/08/97. © Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.
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