By Andy Newman
New York Times, February 11, 1998
NEW YORK -- Renewing a decade-old push to regulate commercial bicyclists,city lawmakers are considering a bill to require messenger services, restaurantsand other firms that deliver by bicycle to carry $50,000 in liability insurancecoverage per cyclist -- twice the legal minimum for taxis and privatelyowned cars.
The bill, the subject of a hearing at the City Council's TransportationCommittee Tuesday, also mandates that commercial bicyclists wear helmets,and requires their employers to buy a special license that could be revokedif riders did not wear helmets.
The license, which would cover any number of bicycle messengers or deliverymen,would cost a company $200 for two years.
Supporters of the bill said it was desperately needed to provide a measureof accountability to a group that often seems to operate under its ownlaws.
But several owners of larger messenger companies predicted that thelaw would only force more cyclists to work for fly-by-night firms thatflout the law. And pro-cyclist advocacy groups called the insurance requirementsabsurd. They said that bicyclists are responsible for only a small fractionof traffic accidents, and an even smaller fraction of traffic accidentsthat cause serious injury or death.
The City Department of Transportation had made a push in 1987 to havecommercial cyclists and their employers licensed, but the proposal diedin the City Council.
The new bill, sponsored by Councilman Noach Dear, the TransportationCommittee's chairman, is a response to increasing complaints by some residents,and an accident last November in which a 68-year-old man died on the UpperWest Side after being hit by a restaurant deliveryman illegally ridingon the sidewalk.
The bill also increases the maximum fine for a commercial bicyclistwho rides without an identification plate, or without a shirt or jacketbearing his employer's name, to $250, from $50. The fines to the employerfor such infractions would also increase to the same amount. The law requiringcommercial cyclists to carry identification is generally ignored by ridersand rarely enforced by police, messenger company officials said.
Stephen Athineos, a former courier who now owns his own service, Mother'sMessengers, on East Third Street, told the committee that in a businesswhere the average courier switches jobs every few months, it was nearlyimpossible for companies to control their employees' conduct.
"Say I tell one of my guys, 'If you break the law, you're fired,'" he said."That's not a threat to a bicycle messenger. Thirtyseconds later you're working somewhere else. And now you have my ID plateso if you get stopped for something I get in trouble. All you're goingto do with this is drive the honest registered companies out of business."
But Dear said his intent was not to put anyone out of business. "It'sto establish some controls," he said.
As for the insurance requirement, Dear said, "I want it to be commensuratewith today's times -- someone gets hurt, what the hospital costs are, whatit costs for medical rehabilitation and pain and suffering. I want thatall included." When asked why bicyclists should carry more insurancethan taxis, he replied, "Maybe we should look to raise cab insurance."
Several messenger company owners at the hearing said they felt likethey were being unfairly singled out.
"We're the ones to pick on," said Jeffrey L. Rosenblum, theowner of Elite Couriers, which employs 40 riders. "The couriers haveno political pull."
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