New York Times, November 21, 1997
By KIT R. ROANE
NEW YORK -- Earl Morton, a nine-year veteran of the bicycle messengerwars, sat on his bike in midtown Manhattan Thursday and watched as a teamof six police officers swooped down on a bewildered restaurant deliverymanwho had coasted through a red light.
In a matter of minutes, the officers had issued the deliveryman foursummonses -- from not having a bell on his bicycle to not heeding pedestriantraffic -- totaling nearly $200 in fines.
The police department has intensified its efforts to catch bicycle messengersand deliverymen who break traffic laws since a 68-year-old businessmanleaving an Upper West Side restaurant in Manhattan on Tuesday night diedafter being struck by a deliveryman illegally riding on the sidewalk.
"There are a million cops out there and it's just going to getworse now that a pedestrian got killed," Morton said. "They'rereally cracking down."
Officers at precincts throughout the city were told at roll call Thursdayto keep an eye out for bicyclists breaking the law. And the departmenthas added officers to bicycle enforcement patrols like the one Morton watchedat the Avenue of the Americas and 50th Street, which have been operatingfor three years to catch scofflaws in action.
Sgt. Joe Grogan, who was leading that six-officer team, said he hadgiven out more than 100 summonses by Thursday afternoon. "I'm aboutdone," he said, rounding up the officers for another detail. "Myhand hurts."
Noting that precincts in midtown and upper Manhattan last month hadbeen alerted to the problems caused by cyclists, Leonardo Alcivar, a policedepartment spokesman, said that the death of the businessman, Arthur Kaye,had "caused the department to reinforce the importance of bicyclinglaws."
On the Upper East Side on Wednesday, a previously scheduled police operationresulted in 162 summonses being issued, including some to owners of restaurantswho failed to provide deliverymen with uniforms and identification cardsor to keep logs of where their deliverymen were sent. Five bicycles werealso confiscated from people who rode them on the sidewalk, the policesaid.
The raid followed a declaration by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesdaythat bicycle scofflaws were among the biggest quality-of-life issues nowfacing the city.
Kaye was the second pedestrian this year to die after being hit by abicycle and the third such incident since the beginning of 1996.
While the number of deaths is small, many pedestrians said Thursdaythat the statistics did not take into account the daily close calls theyhad encountered on the city's crowded streets.
Mohamed Elsayed, 34, said that he had been hit numerous times by cyclistsmaneuvering between his hot dog stand and a street near Rockefeller Center.
"The police shouldn't have waited until somebody got killed toenforce the law," he said. "The sidewalk over here is almosttoo dangerous to walk on."
William Griffin, a 45-year-old security guard at Rockefeller Centeradded that he often tells cyclists to slow down only to be ignored.
"These guys ride like maniacs," he said. "They ride againsttraffic, run red lights, hop on the sidewalk and, well, kill people. They'reriding a weapon really, and it should be treated like one."
But for the people who rely on bicycles to earn a living, the city'scrackdown was just one more hazard that they must contend with.
Jose Giobano, who was riding against the flow of traffic on ColumbusAvenue Thursday night delivering food from the Museum Cafe, said that heoften worries about being struck by cars. "I think we sometimes rideon the sidewalk to be safe from cars," he said. "We must workfast because we have to do our job."
Cyclists stopped by the police Thursday said that the officers appearedmore willing to give out tickets for all possible offenses, including relativelysmall infractions like not having a bell on the handlebars.
John Kaehny, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives,a bicyclist advocacy group, said that the police crackdown was misguided,and he suggested that the police seemed to be giving summonses to messengersas a way to fill quotas.
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