By Bob Levey
Washington Post, December 27, 1988
My dear friends the bike messengers are at it again. They remind meof my stocks. After a brief flurry of progress, they sink back to the depthsthey'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. Thetourists are always appropriately impressed. Even the guys sipping wineon 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 roaringalong at (no kidding) about 30 miles an hour. A woman was walking towardhim, holding a boy of perhaps 7 by the hand.
She saw the messenger coming, and feinted right. The messenger careenedthe same way. She Alphonsed left. He Gastoned the same way. She screamedand froze, just as the messenger ran right into her and knocked her andthe 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 rightshoe was slashed. Luckily, the boy was okay.
"The least you could do would be to apologize," I heard thewoman 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 thepolice 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 anythingwill happen," he said.
I wouldn't either -- until the responsible elements in the messengerbusiness (yes, there are a few) decide to police themselves. It's in theirinterest 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 LafayettePark some day. Somebody notices that the messenger is carrying the lawfirm's package. Somebody calls the senior partner to complain. How longdo you think it'll be before that law firm smells P.R. trouble and startssending everything by fax machine?
The police are too strapped to enforce existing bike safety laws. TheCity Council still hasn't passed a law requiring licenses and backgroundchecks [what?] for messengers. So the best approach is for the industryto weed out its own crabgrass by imposing higher standards voluntarily.
The good messengers will remain, and the bad ones will make a livingsome other way. Meanwhile, Lafayette Park once again will become a placeto stroll, rather than a place to dodge guided missiles.
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