New York Times, November 20, 1997
By MICHAEL COOPER
NEW YORK -- A fast-food deliveryman who was riding his bicycle on thesidewalk on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Tuesday night struck andkilled a 68-year-old businessman who was leaving a restaurant, police said.
And while fatal bicycle accidents involving pedestrians are quite rarein New York City, the incident cast new light on cyclists who ride on sidewalksand in traffic with little regard for those around them or the law.
The victim in the latest incident, Arthur Kaye of Fort Lee, N.J., wasleaving the Scaletta Ristorante on West 77th Street near Columbus Avenueat 9:20 p.m. when he was knocked down and killed by a deliveryman illegallyriding his bicycle on the sidewalk, police said.
The deliveryman, Eduardo Delossantos, 24, who works for the ChirpingChicken restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue near West 77th Street, was givena summons at the scene for riding without commercial identification, saidRobert Samuels, a police spokesman.
The Police Department's accident investigation squad took over the caseWednesday, and police officials said that they were weighing more seriouscharges against Delossantos and expected that at the very least he wouldbe given a summons for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said that the fatal accident had led him to askthe Police Department to step up its crackdown on bicycling infractions.
"Bicycles are a very big quality-of-life problem," the mayorsaid. "It may be the thing that was most mentioned to me when I wascampaigning, particularly in Manhattan."
Councilman Andrew Eristoff, a Republican from the Upper East Side whosponsored the 1994 bill giving the police the power to seize bicycles fromthose who ride on sidewalks, said Wednesday that he would push for a newlaw that would hold business owners liable if the deliverymen they employbreak traffic laws.
"What many people thought of as a quality-of-life matter has nowbecome a matter of life and death," Eristoff said.
As food-delivery services have proliferated, so have the complaintsof residents who say the deliverymen create a hazard on their sidewalks."In my four and a half years in office, no other issue has generatedsuch a level of complaints," said Eristoff, who estimated that hegets three calls a week on the subject.
The Police Department has issued 9,867 summonses to bicyclists so farthis year, up from 6,111 summonses during the same period last year, saidDeputy Inspector Michael Collins, a department spokesman. And earlier thismonth the department created a special unit of 10 officers on mountainbikes charged with keeping bicyclists off midtown sidewalks and cars outof designated bike lanes.
On Wednesday, 35 police officers in the 19th precinct on the Upper EastSide conducted a previously scheduled crackdown on cyclists running redlights and riding on the sidewalk.
Kaye was the second pedestrian to be killed by a cyclist this year,police said.
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