FATALITY DELIVERS MESSAGE: IT'S NOT ALL FREEWHEELING
 

by Susan Bickelhaupt,
Boston Globe, November 27, 1988
 

David Reuter, a 22-year-old student at Northeastern, started workingas a bike messenger at 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 19. At 8:35 his bicycle collidedwith a small pickup truck on Beacon Hill. After lying in a coma in MassachusettsGeneral Hospital for six weeks, he died.

Reuter, like many area college students, was attracted to the bike messengerbusiness for the independence it offers, the chance to be outside, theflexible hours.

But his death was a sobering reminder that riding a bike in the city-- whether for commuting, recreation or doing business -- is more oftenthan not a challenge. It also sent chills through the Boston bike messengerindustry, most of which were felt by Reuter's employer of five minutes.

"His death was really the first serious accident for the company," saidNeal Stone, owner of Boston Bicycle Couriers. Stone has always encouragedhis messengers to wear helmets, but since Reuter's death he has taken evenstronger action. He now offers a loan program where the messenger can borrowmoney for a helmet over the course of four weeks' pay. Reuter was not wearinga helmet at the time of the accident.

"It's not the law, so you can't force messengers to wear helmets, butwe don't want them to have any excuse not to wear them," he said. "It'sjust too bad it takes something like this to spur you into action."

"David had phoned us the night before and told us he was going to startworking," said his father, Jerry Reuter, from his home in Plattsburgh,N.Y. ''We were not really thrilled because we thought it would interferewith his studying. David was a political science major on his way to lawschool; he would have graduated in December. But he was an independentcharacter and said this would fit into his program."

The approximately dozen messenger services in Boston today attract newcyclists such as David each year and keep members of the business communityin quick touch with each other.

Bike messengers dart through the city and into Cambridge, finding squaresthat aren't squares, centers that aren't centers and places that just don'texist on any map.

Easily identifiable by the large canvas bags slung over their backsand the look of purpose in their eyes, messengers are at work as long asBoston businesses are open.

Greg Luce, of Brookline, remembers vividly his first day on the job."My last pickup of the day was eight packages from MGH that were goingeverywhere," he says now, two years later. "When I got home, I threw up.It was so stressful."

"Now I can see how really unnecessary that is," said Luce, 22, now onleave from Boston University for a semester and working full time. "I knowthe city so I can see all the streets in my mind." Which is a good thing,because as he and other messengers will readily point out, there are someaddresses in Boston that elude even the most careful mapmaker.

One Boston Place is not on any map; neither is One Financial Center.But if you're a bike messenger in Boston, you'd better know how to findthem, ''because it means the more money you make," according to messengerDoug Sargeant.

Sargeant assesses the driving, walking and bike riding in Boston as"a totally outlaw situation."

"I mean, I've seen pedestrians run into each other; there is no orderedprocess," he said.

Boston police said that in 1986, there were two fatalities of bicycliststhat involved motor vehicles; in 1987, there was one, and so far this yearReuter's is the only death. The statistics kept, however, do not differentiatebetween messengers and commuters or recreational bikers.

While David Reuter lay in a coma, his father took walks around Bostonand saw a lot of people on bicycles. "I would stop and ask them, 'If youhad a helmet, would you wear one?' Everyone said yes, whether they werea youngster or middle-aged man. And I can't tell you how many I asked --my wife says I've become the helmet missionary."

Since Reuter's death, his father and mother have started a fund thatwill go toward the distribution of free bicycle helmets.

Eric Trurin, who with his wife, Diana, runs one of the smaller bikecourier companies, mostly attracts the Cambridge-to-Boston business.

Trurin, 29, worked as a courier himself when he was a post-college songwriter."It fit my lifestyle," he said.

Now the business he started three years ago serves 200 clients and grossesabout $200,000 a year. "But it all goes back into the business," Trurinsaid, rattling off expenses that include insurance, workers' compensationand bookkeeping.

Stone, whose company is about 10 times as big as Trurin's, said he grossesabout $1 million a year. "But of course half of that goes to the riders,"he noted.

Depending on the company, messengers take home 50 to 60 percent of thedelivery charge. A survey of several companies shows that a bike deliveryfrom Harvard Square to Kenmore Square costs about $9, and from KenmoreSquare to downtown about $5.

The key to making more money, though, is not just being a fast rider,but being able to change a flat tire quickly and knowing where all thestreets and alleys are. "If you know what you're doing, you can make $400to $500 a week," Stone said.

Trurin said he resents the image many people have of bike messengersas renegades, and in part blames the movie "Quicksilver," which shows messengersbombing up and down the hills of San Francisco. "It turned this job intoFlashdance," he said.

Sargeant, who has been riding for Cambridge Couriers for three years,agrees. "I went to MIT for two years, I'm not in a rock band and I havea computer," he said.

Stuart Tabakin, who owns the oldest messenger service in Boston, MarathonMessengers, can recall the rocky start of his business 12 years ago.

Tabakin started with two others out of an apartment on Beacon Hill in1977. ''I told them, when we get 10 orders a day, I'll take you out toSteve's" for ice cream, he said. It was August until they were able tocollect.

But slowly, through word of mouth, the business grew, and he can nowdispatch about 70 couriers a day to make about 1,000 deliveries.

Now there are several computers in Tabakin's Back Bay office, telephoneswith a dozen lines to take incoming and outgoing calls, and shelves filledwith computer printouts of bookkeeping records.

Now Tabakin's biggest competition is not so much other courier servicesas it is technology; namely, the facsimile machine.

"Fax machines are our biggest competition right now," Tabakin said.''They took the gravy away; there are no little jobs across the streetanymore."

But, he added, "you still can't fax airplane tickets, legal documentsor photographs that need to be reproduced."

Stone, of Boston Bicycle Couriers, also pointed out that "when the refrigeratorcame into being, all the icemen thought they would go out of business,but there are still trucks that deliver ice."

In addition, he said, "We're a service industry." Messengers, afterall, don't just deliver things, but wait in line for people, too. "No onewants to stand in line at the Registry, so we do it for them."

"What we're doing is a throwback to the 1890s, when everyone used bikemessengers. We're just completing the circle," Stone said. "I can onlythank God the post office is so inefficient," said Stone.