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SãO PAULO, BRAZIL - This is a city with nearly 11 million inhabitants and 4.5 million passenger cars, 32,000 taxis and 15,000 buses.
Traffic jams more than 100 miles long are not uncommon, and even on an ordinary day, getting from one side of the city to the other can take two hours or more. Only one group in São Paulo, South America's largest city, seems immune to those frustrations and delays: the daring army of motorcycle messengers known as "motoboys." Zigzagging among stopped cars, ignoring lane markers, red lights and stop signs, they regularly menace pedestrians and infuriate motorists, armed with the knowledge that without them business would grind to a halt. "Nowadays we are so integrated into the economy that São Paulo couldn't function without us," said Ednaldo Silva, a motoboy who owns an agency employing nearly 50 messengers. "People don't like us or respect us, but we are as essential to transport as trucks, and if we were to go on strike the city would collapse," he said. The bulk of the motoboys' work involves rushing contracts and other legal documents from one business to another, especially for bank loans. But from car parts to architects' plans, human organs for transplant to passports or pizza, there is almost nothing they cannot or will not deliver. Plague or necessity "There's no way to do away with them," Gerson Luis Bittencourt, the municipal transportation secretary, acknowledged. "They employ a ton of people and facilitate things for everyone. So what we have to do is find a way to regulate the phenomenon and restore sociability in traffic." According to official figures, São Paulo now has 332 motoboy agencies. Competition is strong and they adopt names, often in English, stressing efficiency: Adrenaline Express, Moto Bullet, Fast Express, Agile Boys, Motojet, Fly Boy, Motoboy Speed, AeroBoy Express, Fast Boys. With so much emphasis on speed and so much competition with other vehicles, the job is often dangerous. Broken bones and wrecked motorcycles are an occupational hazard, and according to figures compiled by the union, on average, at least one motoboy a day dies in a traffic accident. "The truth is that we're discardable," said Edson Agripino, 38, a motoboy veteran of 15 years. "When a colleague gets hurt or killed, the first thing the dispatchers ask is, 'Did he deliver the document?' " Nevertheless, many motoboys, especially the younger ones, see themselves as free spirits or urban cowboys, defying the conventions of society and envied by stodgy wage-earners stuck in their cars. Ordinary motorists consider motoboys a plague, and hostility between the two groups is fierce and growing. Fistfights between drivers and motoboys are not unknown. "I can't stand motoboys," said graphic artist Flavio Kobayashi. "You're sitting there stuck in traffic, on your way home after a long, hard day, and along they come with their infernal beep-beep-beep, weaving their way through traffic in complete disregard of everyone else on the road." Regulation fails To bring the situation under control, the municipal government last year created an obligatory registry system. The new rules required motoboys to pay a tax of $110, prove that they do not have criminal records, obtain life insurance, wear helmets, drive motorcycles less than 10 years old and carry their cargoes in rear-mounted baskets with a license numbers on them, for tracking purposes. Motoboys resisted the system, saying it was devised to banish them from the streets. Only 40,000 of them registered. Many protested, blocking some main streets. Mayor Marta Suplicy eventually rescinded the program. B
