Editorial
One year ago, a pair of severe bicycle messenger crashes in Boston andSan Francisco shook the courier communities in those cities. A year later,the difference in consequences afforded to each provides a startlinglyhonest view of how American transportation really works.
In August 1997, San Francisco bicycle messenger Casey Moe was run downwhile trying to dodge an errant pedestrian. He was hit by an unlicenseddriver working for the enormous JCDecaux company, and no one involved receivedso much as a ticket. Local newspapers exonerated those who killed him,minimizing the incident as a ripple in business-as-usual. (Seestory, page16).
Three months after Casey Moe was run down in San Francisco, a couriercrash again made news_in a vastly different way. When William J. Spring,vice president of Boston's Federal Reserve Bank, strode into the path ofbicycle messenger Jonathan Gladstone on October 30, cycling safety wasgiven a different spin entirely. Mr. Spring was seriously injured, andthe Boston messenger community soon faced the harshest police crackdownin its history (See story, page17).
The contrast between these two incidents brings into stark relief adouble-standard that bicycle messengers the world over have known for sometime: while cyclists maintain a vastly superior safety record, the carnagewrought by drivers carries a special sort of immunity.
Cycle messengers are alternately characterized or romanticized as scofflawpunks. Yet episodes such as these render such hypocrisy paramount: messengerswork in the city, and they exist within a context.
While the messengers upon whom Boston professionals rely heavily arerequired to move quickly for their livelihoods, the very same professionalclass handily removes itself from the equation when problems occur. TheBoston Chamber of Commerce was principal among those demanding a harshand immediate crackdown on the bicycle workers its members depend on. Asnoted by messenger advocate Joe Hendry, this crackdown now "forcesbicycle messengers to carry greater insurance than both taxi drivers andautomobile couriers." It also grants local police the power to arbitrarilysuspend, deny or revoke the driving licences of bike couriers_automobilecouriers are curiously exempted from this sanction. Similarly harsh sanctionsalready exist in Chicago and Washington, DC.
Many in the bicycle messenger community have long noted that the contextwith which to view bicycle crashes is in relation to the carnage wroughtby automobiles. In America, that would be over 40,000 deaths and 3.5 millioninjuries in 1996 alone. The size, speed and insulation of the automobilerenders it inherently more dangerous than a cyclist could ever aspire tobe. Studies show that pedestrians are 250 times more likely to be hit bya car, bus or taxi than by a bicycle.
While pedestrians and bicyclists are 16% of road fatalities, they areallocated one percent of the safety budget for American surface transportation.It is usual for such truths to be ignored. Despite the occasional liberallip-service, entrenched autophiles in urban planning departments reignsupreme_the larger trend sees cyclists of all sorts considered last inmatters of road safety. The death rate for cyclists in San Francisco hasincreased since that city was shocked by the deaths of Casey Moe and fellowcyclist Paulina Caluya last August. Meanwhile in Melbourne, Australia,Premier Jeff Kennett vowed in June to bring forth fines or force to address"kamikaze" bicycle messengers. The drivers in his district presumablyconduct themselves as pristine, lily-white angels.
A cynical professional class collaborates here, preferring bikers assubordinates in both wages and safety concerns. Bicycle messengers routinelyperform tasks that no gridlocked car could attempt, yet they are somehowheld to absolute standards absent elsewhere in transportation. Judgementsof couriers_springing from tired stereotypes come before any simple appreciationof their willingness to perform a vital and dangerous job in an ecologicallysound manner. San Francisco, Toronto and the City of North York have allissued proclamations declaring October 9 as International MessengerAppreciation Day (10-9 is radio for "say again?").
The next time you encounter a bike courier in traffic, don't panic.It becomes harder to know how you will move when you do so. Instead, understandthat this person must know how to ride safely in order to make it homethrough auto traffic, and proceed accordingly.
Just as couriers provide an essential service to the professional class,they can show us all the beauty of life by bicycle. What is the potentialof this mode? Pay a visit to the next Freight Bike World Championshipsand find out.
While not everyone across the spectrum of the bike messenger communitywill consider themselves ecologists first, the daily example of sustainabilitythey provide should be recognized.
We should all be taking any available steps to decrease the incidenceof road crashes. Sincerity in such an effort will demand that if we areto condemn the one, we must condemn them all.
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