Governing Magazine, June 1999

See note below for missing facts
 

Last year in Boston, a bicycle messenger made a big mistake. As Councilor Stephen Murphy left a meeting in City Hall and stepped off the curb, the speeding  courier, going the wrong way down a one-way street, nearly plowed into him.  Then he swore at Murphy for getting in his way.

The biker had picked on the wrong man at the wrong time.  Not only was Murphy chairman of the council's public safety committee but the panel was in the middle of debating new regulations for the teeming bike messenger industry in Boston.

Murphy says he didn't take the incident personally, but he didn't forget it, either. Shortly afterward, he and his colleagues voted a crackdown on the conduct of messengers who deliver packages and letters across the city.  Under the newly adopted ordinance, bike messengers are required to be licensed by the police department, to wear a helmet and obtain liability insurance.  In addition, each bike must display a license plate.

Boston is just the latest big city to clamp down on messenger mayhem.  Citing reckless bike messengers as a major threat to public safety, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani recently ordered increased police enforcement of traffic laws against reckless riders.  Chicago has targeted breakneck bike couriers with tight insurance requirements.

Not every messenger is a two-wheeled menace to pedestrians.  But with hundreds of them operating in some cities, there is intense interest in regulatory solutions.  "We are in a downtown area here," says Murophy.  "We see the worst types of egregious offenses by bike couriers right under our noses."

Much of the uproar stems from recent, highly publicized accidents involving pedestrians and daredevil couriers.  In New York where many fast-food restaurants employ bicycle deliverymen, one of them struck and killed a 68-year on sidewalk pedestrian in 1997, sparking widespread calls for greater scrutiny of reckless cyclists.  Boston city officials were acting in response to a violent 1997 collision that landed prominent School Committee member William Spring in an intensive care unit.

But as many local officials will tell you, concern over lawless messengers - some of whom barrel down crowded downtown streets at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour - is driven by reams of complaints, not media coverage.  "I've heard from constituents of lots of incidents of people being knocked over or brushed against," says Seattle Councilwoman Martha Choe.

Bike messengers insist they are being unfairly singled out for transgressions of a relative few.  The offer data to show that automobiles are far more dangerous that couriers.  Indeed, an incident in Chicago in April, in which an angry motorist chased down and ran over a bike messenger, indicates that the couriers themselves are sometimes victimized.

As for the William Spring incident in Boston - a cause celebre among messengers across the country - many argue that the accident was caused in part by Spring himself, who they contend crossed against the light.  "We're not saying the bike messenger in Boston was completely innocent, but it was probably mostly the fault of the pedestrian," says Joe Hendry of the International Federation of Bike Messenger Associations.  "The backlash has been so hard and heavy because there is a prejudice against bike messengers."

Couriers aren't always on the losing end of these arguments.  A 1994 plan to license and regulate Seattle bike couriers failed after messengers stormed city council hearings en masse and convinced lawmakers that many of the reckless bikers were actually commuters, not those who rode to make a living.

Still, Seattle is likely to remain one of the messengers' rare victories, if only because they have an uncanny knack for picking the wrong fights at the wrong time.  Several years ago in Chicago; shortly after the city council postponed passage of strict anti-messenger regulations, an errant courier slammed into the car door of a state representative.  The legislator responded by introducing a biker-control bill in the legislature.

[This is a good example of the prejudice. Under the law it was the state representative (the lawmaker) who broke the law and should have been charged. But prejudice by the powerful leads to laws that discriminate]

Even in Boston, where they have been pummeled repeatedly in the court of public opinion, messengers continue to prove the haven't mastered the art of political persuasion.  Soon after passage of the city's new messenger regulations, Councilor Murphy again found himself buzzed by a belligerent biker.  This time,[Murphy claims] the courier blew through a red light and stuck his leg out to push Murphy aside as he rode past.  Murphy was guick to take advantage of his own ordinance.  He wrote down the messenger's license plate number and reported it to the police.
 

[Murphy is one of the supreme Boston Bigots. He also tried to ban the use of fixed gear bikes in Boston, just because messengers use them.]

Since much of the reporting in this accident is selective when it comes to the facts, Messengerville has included some. These types of serious accidents involving bike couriers are extremely rare. The Gladstone/Spring accident occurred when a pedestrian (Spring) ran across the street against a red light and collided with the cyclist (Gladstone) who was proceeding through a green light.

The bicycle messenger ordinance in effect at the time already required bicycle couriers to have licenses, wear visible identification numbers, and have license plates on their bikes. It also required messenger companies to register with the city. Much to the dismay of the anti-bike types, the only new requirement is insurance. Automobile couriers face no similar requirements.

Since the accident took place at an intersection crosswalk Gladstone was ticketed because, under the law vehicles must yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk - even if the pedestrian is jaywalking. The fines he received were: "$100 for not wearing the vest required under a city ordinance; $100 for not being licensed, and $20 under the state law mandating deference to pedestrians in crosswalks. In other words $200 for bureaucratic violations and $20 for traffic violations.

Under Murphy's new law a motorist who kills someone while drinking and driving would not be permitted to work as a bicycle courier in Boston. However that same drunk driving motorist would be permitted to work as a car courier in Boston. I guess Murphy would prefer drunk drivers to drive cars.

Back to the Boston Crash Controversey

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