Fast and Furious, on the Sidewalks of N.Y.

The messenger who calls himself Kamakizee stood next to his mountain bike on Park Avenue on Friday, contemplating another day jousting with the police.

“I’m one of the crazies,” he admitted. “I’m one of the radical riders out here who doesn’t give a damn.

“A year ago I had static with the cops. They maced me and I didn’t go down. I clocked one of the cops on the head. I tackled the other. I got 81 days in jail for it.”

Wearing elbow pads and baseball shin guards along with his helmet, Kamakizee, 42, is one of the thousands of deliverers and messengers who whip through Manhattan traffic jams on bicycles, helping keep this congested city humming despite itself.

“We’re just doing our basic living, just like everybody else,” Kamakizee said.

But fewer New Yorkers see it that way, especially this week after a 68-year-old businessman was struck and killed by an fast-food deliveryman illegally pedaling on the sidewalk.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ordered police to more vigorously pursue cyclists who run red lights, fly down crowded sidewalks or who lack such essentials as a bell on the handlebar to signal a change in direction.

“Bicycles are a very big quality-of-life problem,” the mayor said. “It may be the thing that was most mentioned to me when I was campaigning [for reelection], particularly in Manhattan.”

On Tuesday, Arthur Kaye of Fort Lee, N.J., was struck on the sidewalk by a deliveryman for Chirping Chicken, a Manhattan fast-food restaurant.

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Kaye, who had a heart condition, hit his head on the pavement and died an hour later at St. Luke’s Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Eduardo Delossantos, 24, was given a summons at the scene for riding without commercial identification. Police said it was likely he also would receive a summons for illegally riding his bicycle on the sidewalk and perhaps face more serious charges.

Kaye was the second person to be killed by a bicycle in the city this year.

Many New Yorkers applaud the crackdown as long overdue.

“In theory, you should only have to look one way when you cross a one-way street,” said Daniel E. Cohen, a Manhattan marketing and communications consultant. “I don’t know how many times I’ve looked carefully and out of the blue the other way comes some guy delivering a pizza or a fax or some clams.

“After the guy almost kills you coming from the blind side, he looks back over his shoulder and swears at you.”

Others see the debate as a two-way street.

Bicycle messengers complain they are being harassed and say little has been done to keep legal bike lanes open.

“I know one biker who got four tickets for running one red light,” said Chris Kim, a bike messenger. “Meanwhile, the bike lane has three cars double-parked in it.”

Cooler heads argue that responsible cyclists have always avoided riding on sidewalks.

“We believe bicyclists should follow the law like everyone else,” said Elizabeth Ernish, an official of Transportation Alternatives, an organization lobbying for greater bicycle use to reduce traffic and pollution. “The mayor talks a lot about quality of life, but if you really want to talk about quality of life, talk about the traffic volume. We need to have more bike lanes.”

Her group says about 100,000 people ride bicycles in New York. Last year, 3,500 were injured and 16 cyclists were killed.

In New York, bicyclists are required to follow the same rules as motorists--yielding to pedestrians, obeying traffic lights and carrying mandated safety equipment, such as reflectors and a signaling device. Summonses can run as high as $100 for certain moving violations.

The crackdown threatens the bike industry, said Larry Zogby, president of RDS Delivery Service Co., noting that “bikers can earn $300 to $500 a week, depending on how well they know the city and how fast they are.”

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But for Zogby, hiring cyclists is a practice of the past. He now uses only messengers who walk.

With bicyclists, Zogby said, he was paying close to $80,000 a year in worker’s compensation because of accidents and other claims.

“We had to make a decision. Do we stay in business or pay workmen’s compensation?”

Times special correspondents Lisa Meyer and Lynette Ferdinand contributed to this story.