Cop pulled me for over running a red light... on my BIKE

bloominonion wrote:

When was the last time you rode a bike through a city street? If you ride every day, you realize how impractical and unsafe it is to follow the some of motor vehicle laws when riding a bike.

1. Impractical = less convenient for you to stop at lights than it is to simply ride through them. Poor baby.

2. Unsafe? Bull.

Give me an example of a law that, when followed, makes things LESS safe for you on a bike and that you must break to be safer.

$20 is a great deal for running a red light. Must not be in California... You earn the same fine as a car does here, last I checked it was somewhere over $300.

I knew a guy who got busted for a "rolling stop" on his bike. Aparently you have to stop and put one foot down, then you can go. He slowly rolled through with the car next to him. The kicker...it was "ride your bike to work" day. haha...

bloominonion wrote:

so bikes have to follow the vehicle code, no exceptions...but bikes are allowed to ride on the sidewalk in mass. so, we've got a law that differs for bikes and for vehicles because bikes are different from cars.

Rules should be designed for safety, not with the "if the car has to follow them then so do bikes so there!"

They are designed for safety. That's why they allow you to ride bikes on the sidewalks. Because the streets in Massachusetts are very old, frequently narrow, and not built to accomodate bike lanes. When they DO paint bike lanes, what they end up having to do is paint them in the existing car lanes. The rule that required this guy to stop was designed mainly to protect pedestrians. He is not at all any less safe by stopping at the light than he would be by sailing through it.

germany and switzerland called, you are to return immediately

Average_Joe wrote:

2. Unsafe? Bull.

Give me an example of a law that, when followed, makes things LESS safe for you on a bike and that you must break to be safer.

Bikes must ride on the same side of the road as cars. However, it is not safe to ride in the traffic lane since it's tough for most bikers to ride the speed of traffic. so bikes have to use the shoulder of the road. The shoulders of many roads are flooded, full of garbage cans, or don't exist. if the other side of the road has a shoulder, it is safer to ride on the other side but it is illegal for bikes to do this. same goes for sidewalks in many states.

now ride your bike down a city street with stop signs every 400 meters and do a foot down stop at every single one of them. i guarantee you that you will have a better understanding of why bikes following the same rules as cars is impractical.

Wear a pro jersey and ride to work in Europe.

Problem solved.

I blow through numerous red lights and stop signs every day as I ride my bike to work - if the fine is only $20, it is worth it b/c I easily save 10 hours a year by doing this.

The police officer who ticketed you is a hero and if you know his name and department, please let me know so I can send him a "Thank You" note.

Where I live, the police really need to start cracking down on bicyclists that think they are not vehicles. Visit the DC suburbs, particularly the wealthiest suburbs or pseudo-city of Alexandria. Cyclists there are constantly running red lights, blowing past Stop signs, and ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks.

Consider yourself lucky....I got pulled over while training for the NYC Marathon.....not once...but TWICE.....

The second time was during a tempo workout....talk about messing up a great morning. Neither time was I ticketed, just ultimately harassed. The first time the guy was in a car....Blocked a lane of traffic so he could wedge me from running away...You'd think I was running away from a bank crime scene.

The second time was an overzealous roid raging motorcycle cop having dough nut withdraws. This guy was about half ready to throw the handcuffs on me and teach me the meaning of police brutality when I explained him the scientific difference between running and walking. Still got off with no ticket, but he eventually called for backup and the guy told him to leave me alone and get back to real work. He must have been let in on the liquidation sale of yesterdays dough nuts at Doh! Nut World.

This did not occur in "many states". It occurred in Massachusetts where it is perfectly legal to ride on the side walks.

I do precisely that. And I do it in the same streets that the original cyclist did and got ticketed on. Not impractical at all. You don't even need to put your foot down to stop a bike if you have any sense of balance

But if you want to ride through that stop sign, be my guest, just don't whine if you get ticketed for it.

Go Copper! wrote:

The police officer who ticketed you is a hero and if you know his name and department, please let me know so I can send him a "Thank You" note.

Where I live, the police really need to start cracking down on bicyclists that think they are not vehicles. Visit the DC suburbs, particularly the wealthiest suburbs or pseudo-city of Alexandria. Cyclists there are constantly running red lights, blowing past Stop signs, and ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks.

This mindset appears to be very prevalent but for the life of me I can't understand why. Sure when I’m in my car I might get a little perturbed if a bike runs a red light but who cares? It’s just a bike. If I see a car run a red light then that rises to a higher level of infraction.

In the US it would seem that if you are in a car you have some type of God given right to your position in traffic. God forbid a motorcycle or bicycle or pedestrian needs to take 30 seconds out of your day to interrupt your enjoyment of driving in your space.

This is what I tell people like Go Copper!; if they have a problem with my riding then they should just blink and I'll be out of their life with no lasting ill effects.

Like others have said, pedestrians, buses, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, etc., should all take precedence over the almighty car.

I do believe that when gas prices continue to climb we’ll see more and more people using alternative means of transportation (mopeds can get over 100 miles per gallon) and, hopefully, people like Go Copper! will be relegated to minority status, kind of like smokers are today.

amen, i get the feeling the anti-bikers who are on this thread have NEVER biked in city traffici was thinking about this thread on my ride home yesterdayon a bike a few things are apparent and anyone with any experience on a bike in traffic i think would agree with me1) car drivers break the law all the time - they run red lights (thinking they are sneakinging by without anyone noticing), they do not signal lane changes or turns, they do not pay attentionthis is shocking on many levels, on a bike or on foot, if you run a light or aren't paying attenion the consequences are largely on you, in a car, it is not like oops i ran a red and there was someone there - oh well, i just smacked the hell out of him with my carbeing careless and aggresive in a car carries consequences and yet it happens more frequently than not2) the dangerous objects on the road are cars - not a bike, you get a sense of just how small and crushable you are when you ride next to them, and how fast they are compared to you3) 99% of potential accidents with pedestrians are not due to you running lights/signs, they are from idiot pedestrians, leaping from behind cars and aimlessly jay walking only looking for cars not bikes4) the only way to make any kind of time biking is to run lights and stop signs5) running a light on a bike is hardly different than walking across an intersection when there is no cars comingso to those that scoff, try biking to work in a metro area, you'll see just how vunerable you are and maybe you'll understand next time when a cyclist gets angry at a car

exactly and i have to say i'm actually kind of glad the gas prices are rising. there seems to be this mentality out that cars are #1 form of transoportation and everything else is a lower form of life.

running lights when it's not safe and some cycling advocate groups can give cyclists a bad name - critical mass rides come to mind. also but i understand why they do it (not the red light running). until biking becomes a much more common form of transportation, nothing will change this mentality.

There's no reason for a biker to get a ticket for going through a light. To all the people who are so appalled by this behavior, when you're on a run, do you stop before you cross every street? Do you ever cross a street against a light if there's no cars coming? For this situation where the light was not at an intersection but just for a crosswalk, if you were running and no cars were coming, would you pres the walk button and wait until you go the walk sign, or would you just cross? A bike rolling through an intersection is much more similar to a pedestrian than it is to a car.

Biker and Runner wrote:

There's no reason for a biker to get a ticket for going through a light.

Yah! There is no reason for a car driver to get a ticket either! Those lights are so annoying!

Get this straight: Automobiles ARE the number one form of transportation. Everything else IS a lower form of life.

The next time you ride your bike down to the supermarket, ask yourself where all the groceries you buy there come from. How do they get to the market?

Trucks.

The next time you go to your bike shop to get a new part for your bike, ask yourself how all that stuff gets to the shop

Trucks.

The fact is, the bulk of people in our economy have to travel long distances to get to work or to do their jobs. Distances that make a bike impractical. These people make the bulk of the income and pay the bulk of the taxes in this country. Those taxes go to pave the very same roads that you ride on with your bikes.

The automobile in all its forms is a prime force - THE prime force - in driving the US economy. The mobility it has provided has helped make the US economy the strongest in the world over the past 60 years. It is the reason we enjoy the standard of living we do. Anything which threatens benefits provided by the automobile is a threat to the economy itself.

The automobile why the roads you ride your bike on are paved. The automobile is why you get to eat high quality food cheaply. It is why your local hospital, bike shop, post office, hardware store, and coffee shop can function as they do.

The automobile is the #1 form of transportation. Your bike and my bike is not.

Running a red light is a violation even on a bike.

A friend of mine was once given a speeding ticket for going >30 mph on his bike (it was down a pretty steep hill).

Another person I know was killed by blowing through a stop sign on his bike. The car coming had no chance to stop (sort of a blind intersection, thus the stop sign).

Heck be glad it was only $20.

PS: Learn to do a "track stop" on your bike.

dean moriarty wrote:

You have to ask yourself- is spending an irritating day arguing over a ticket worth risking having to pay the ticket AND waste your time? I would say no.

However, in the interest of having a better story to tell in the future, you should absolutely appeal... I would suggest preparing an entire presentation for the magistrate that you can quickly turn into a condescending screed about the waste of police resources if things don't go your way. Bring up the crime numbers in Dorchester, etc, and remind everyone that your taxes pay their salary. Ask them why they would fine YOU, an otherwise law-abiding, tax-paying citizen riding their bike to save the city from extra traffic and pollution, when there are murders to solve and children to save.

Godspeed.

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