By Bob Levey
Washington Post, December 27, 1988
My dear friends the bike messengers are at it again. They remind me of my stocks. After a brief flurry of progress, they sink back to the depths they've always inhabited.
As longtime readers know, I like to stroll in Lafayette Park at lunchtime. The White House, fresh paint job and all, looks spiffy and inspiring. The tourists are always appropriately impressed. Even the guys sipping wine on the benches seem to be on their best behavior.
But bike messengers regard Lafayette as their private piece of freeway. Last Tuesday came evidence. From across the park, I saw a messenger roaring along at (no kidding) about 30 miles an hour. A woman was walking toward him, holding a boy of perhaps 7 by the hand.
She saw the messenger coming, and feinted right. The messenger careened the same way. She Alphonsed left. He Gastoned the same way. She screamed and froze, just as the messenger ran right into her and knocked her and the boy down.
The 7-year-old started crying. A passerby helped the woman to her feet. Her lip was bleeding, her knee was skinned, her coat was torn and her right shoe was slashed. Luckily, the boy was okay.
"The least you could do would be to apologize," I heard the woman say to the messenger.
He replied by calling her a name that rhymes with witch.
Did he leave his phone number? Did he identify his company or himself? Did he offer to call a cop? He isn't required to do any of those things, so he did none of them. He simply got back on his bike and left. Once again, a messenger who belonged in jail had gotten away scot-free.
I donned my Good Citizen Hat and tried to make him pay. I called the police and asked to file a report. A desk officer took the information, rather reluctantly.
"Are you going to do anything with this?" I asked.
"I'll make a report, but I wouldn't bet the ranch that anything will happen," he said.
I wouldn't either -- until the responsible elements in the messenger business (yes, there are a few) decide to police themselves. It's in their interest to do that, because they will suffer economically if they don't.
Let's say you're a law firm that needs to get some papers across town. You use bike messengers because they're cheap and efficient.
But let's say another bike messenger takes out another tourist in Lafayette Park some day. Somebody notices that the messenger is carrying the law firm's package. Somebody calls the senior partner to complain. How long do you think it'll be before that law firm smells P.R. trouble and starts sending everything by fax machine?
The police are too strapped to enforce existing bike safety laws. The City Council still hasn't passed a law requiring licenses and background checks [what?] for messengers. So the best approach is for the industry to weed out its own crabgrass by imposing higher standards voluntarily.
The good messengers will remain, and the bad ones will make a living some other way. Meanwhile, Lafayette Park once again will become a place to stroll, rather than a place to dodge guided missiles.
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