Cycling traffic laws are stupid, period. Who ever made them has never been on a bike in the middle of a busy street, that much is clear. The fact that they pretend that a bicycle can follow the same rules as a car is just laughable. There are so many situations that don’t apply that it makes them stupid, to put it mildly. Case in point, riding a bike on the side walk. We all have done it, some of us to make it easier to dismount, or mount our bikes without putting ourselves in danger of getting run over in the middle of the street, other people just to stay safe, because they don’t feel safe on the street, they can’t keep up with traffic speed, they are frightened to death of cars, etc… Riding on the side walk is safe, and done at low speeds is ok. I have no problem with calling attention to people that fly down sidewalks, freaking out pedestrians and putting people in danger. Yet, its a really good way to collect revenue for cities, where fat lazy policemen-women, will put speed traps and plain stalk riders hiding behind trees or walls in order to catch them infraganti.
There are of course other laws that are stupid as well. The other day I scared the hell of a couple of gals in uniform (cops) when I came flying down the middle of a lane (cutting lanes), in a four lane avenue (6th st). They chased me and threatened with giving me a ticket for not following the car’s traffic rules. I apologized and kept going. But that didn’t fly when I got caught in a sting at 6th and Congress riding on the sidewalk. To be fair, all I was doing was getting on the street the easy way after unlocking my bike 20 feet from the corner. The cop (your average fat asshole) didn’t care, and proceeded to give me a ticket. Now I have to go to court to see if I can get a lower penalty (they want $140 for a class C misdemeanor, which should be $20-30). The guy that works at the Starbucks at that corner told me that he saw at least 30 people get a ticket that morning, I personally saw at least 3 while I waited for my ticket. Ridiculous. Of course when lunch came and after that, the pigs left and everyone continued to ride on the sidewalk. Whatever.
Bicycle ticket
bicycle ticket
Update: I ended up going to court for this and they offered me a deal where I paid the “minimum”, $101 dollars, otherwise who knows, I could have paid probably more if I went to talk to the judge and he thought that I had waisted his time and that had a monetary cost. So after $101 this whole ordeal ended.
August 25, 2008 at 12:12 am
shit. man that’s so unfair!
August 25, 2008 at 12:22 am
indeed
February 21, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Policing is now a business not a service to the public. They do these stings to make payroll and build extravagant police departments. They should maybe invest half into teachers’ salaries or education. They usually break the same law they enforce when they go after you. They think because they enforce the law they are above it. If they weren’t exploiting the law for gain then they would be working with the city to put up a preventative measure so they could go fight real crime somewhere and help make real glorious change for society. They are using bandito tactics to basically jump out and rob you. Am I wrong?
February 21, 2009 at 5:17 pm
It’s indeed a business, there are designated days when they do their sweeps and the rest of the time they don’t really care what you do, that is, in places like Austin, where crime is really low and they have the luxury to spend the time putting up a sting, if there were real crime all over all the time, this would be impossible. They know how to make money, because the law is so lame, its made by people that don’t ride, never have ridden a bike in traffic and prefer cars anyway.