On October 30th, 2009 I decided to take my girlfriend (katie) on an organized bike ride (“Critical Mass”) that takes place on every last Friday of the month. Since it was October, the theme was Halloween — everyone dresses up in costumes and ride. Seemed pretty harmless and was my attempt to convince Katie that cycling can be fun.
Long story short, on the first red light of the group ride we all blew right past it. I was fully aware of what I did and decided to go through because the cars at the intersection courteously stopped to let us through and thought the cops on the motorscooters were escorting us. During my motorcycle days, I used to organize moto events that start from Bear mountain and end in the city. If more than 50 riders were present, we were required to get signed waivers of liability from everyone and let the city know about the ride. In some cases, we were “escorted”.
In this case, the cops were there not to escort but to hand out tickets. One full wave, about 8 of us got tickets for running a red light. The cop asked me for my DRIVER’S LICENSE and handed me a $190 ticket! I guess it didn’t help when I asked him what the problem was while fully decked out in a nerd costume and messed up teeth. Think he took me seriously?
The cop said I was lucky for not getting a ticket due to “inadequate” lights on my bike. (I had one headlight and red flashers on the back). The ticket was laughable. “VEHICLE TYPE” — BIKE. “VEHICLE COLOR” — BLACK. For the VEHICLE MAKE I thought he would write Cannondale but he left it blank.
I decided to bite the bullet and just pay. I didn’t have time to lose at work to go to court and tried numerous times to pay the ticket online at (http://nycserv.nyc.gov/NYCServWeb/NYCSERVMain) but it wouldn’t accept it because it couldn’t find the ticket number. Time passed and completely forgot about the ticket. I recently got a letter in the mail (“Notice of impending driver license suspension & conviction”) saying if I don’t answer by tomorrow (1/5/10), my driver’s license will be suspended.
I ended up paying through the DMV’s website but am really annoyed to pay $190 for a bike ticket. The DMV is the dept of MOTOR vehicles, last I checked my bike doesn’t have a motor ([enter sarcasm now] I can see why he would think I had a motor since I’m so fast).
It’s like jaywalking, everyone does it but no one enforces it. Why is it linked to your driver’s license–I see zero correlation.
If NY sees this as me breaking traffic laws, then perhaps we should take a permit test for bicycling so everyone is aware of the laws surrounding bikes. Throw in bike insurance, too for safe measure.
Just another desperate measure for the city to raise money. You just got $190, hope you’re happy.
Rant over.
