by Meredith O'Brien
Boston Herald, May 13, 1998
Adam Ford thinks he and his fellow bicycle couriers get a bad rap, that they don't make the streets as dangerous as Boston's infamously bad automobile drivers.
``There are good drivers and there are bad drivers,'' said Ford, a courier for Boston's RS Express for five years.
Ford - dressed in typical courier garb with black spandex shorts, long black T-shirt, a ponytail and a silver helmet tucked under his arm - and the rest of the city's estimated 300 messengers were on the hot seat yesterday at a City Council hearing on proposed stiffer regulations for bike couriers.
The hearing was punctuated by powerful testimony from Micho Spring, whose husband, William, a School Committee member, almost died when struck by a courier on a bicycle last fall.
William Spring, though not well enough to attend the hearing, submitted written testimony endorsing a crackdown on messengers mandating $200,000 insurance per carrier, armbands, and license plates, and giving the police commissioner the power to revoke licenses. Reckless cyclists would also face new fines.
``Last October 30th, I was nearly killed by a bicycle messenger while in the crosswalk on Commonwealth Avenue in front of my home as I returned from work to pick up my son to take him to basketball,'' Spring said. ``The messenger, who was unlicensed and traveling with no lights after dark, hit me with enough force to cause very severe injuries.'''
Spring detailed how he endured facial and shoulder fractures, lacerations, lost several teeth and experienced brain hemorrhaging requiring surgery. He was in a coma for six weeks.
``My wife was told by the emergency room doctors that I looked as if I had been hit by a car going 40 miles an hour,'' he wrote.
Dorothy Morris, who works downtown, said she was struck by a bike courier last month and sustained a fractured skull. ``I'm still suffering the aftereffects,'' Morris said, adding that the new regulations don't go far enough.
Councilor Brian J. Honan said dangerous messengers are the ones who need to be regulated.
``It's the guy who almost ran me down in front of the State House a few minutes ago,'' he said.
But Ford said demonizing couriers doesn't take into account the sheer volume of people who are killed by reckless automobile drivers, citing the 2-year-old Dorchester girl killed earlier this month in front of her home by a hit-and-run driver.
Ford said while he agrees more regulations are necessary, some of the measures won't curb dangerous behavior.
``To think that the threat of a fine will change anybody's behavior, it won't,'' he said.
He said it's unfair to make messengers wear armbands, as opposed to
simply having a visible license plate, because other delivery people, like
truck drivers, don't have to wear something on their uniforms as identification.
``Out of a sense of personal protection they (messengers) won't wear an
armband,'' Ford said.
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