"Yesterday afternoon I was heading home from lunch in Nyack. At about 2 pm I was ticketed for running a stop sign at the corner of Piermont Ave. and Mansfield.
I am usually a very law abiding cyclist. I commute by bike, and since that happens early in the morning before I have reached full consciousness, my policy is to be REALLY REALLY conservative. No running red lights even when there is no car in sight. No cheating. Really. I just don't trust myself first thing in the morning. So it has become habit.
I blew the stop sign because I didn't see it. If I have to appear in court, I will check out that stop sign to see if it isn't obstructed by big trees. It occurred to me as I stewed on my way home that it looked that way when I first saw it -- after the fact and from behind. If anyone has any thoughts on this -- if you know the corner I am referring to, please let me know.
Anyway... even without seeing the sign I did slow considerably because I saw a slow, hesitating car oncoming and I thought he may want to turn in front of me. But he didn't, so I proceeded into the intersection. As I did, so did he! And while it became clear that I was, in fact, in the intersection, he continued!
In retrospect I think he was angry that I had blown the stop sign. He felt HE had the right of way, and by god, he was going to continue even if it meant, literally, doing it over my dead body. I didn't fall but I came very close -- I had to maneuver to avoid getting hit and I did lose balance, and I was really scared. I had that rubber legs sensation you get from a close call, and I yelled at the driver.
Just then Officer Opie came along and gave me a ticket! I am still recuperating from the fear of nearly being hit and I AM GETTING THE TICKET. I was beside myself with rage. I said to the cop that the guy made a left right in front of me, and that he almsot hit me. The cop's response was to lecture me that bikes are required to follow the rules of the road just like cars and that ""you were supposed to stop"". Even assuming that the stop sign IS in clear view and it was my fault (possible) is there some kind of new law that states it is legal to hit someone if they blow a stop sign? I know this driver saw me. And he just kept going.
I see no mention of a fee on the ticket, and I am starting to be concerned that I have to appear in court. NO! I can't do it! Does anyone know about tickets in Nyack? Do I have to appear? It will make me explode with rage.
"
Nyack Ticket Blitz?
The sign is visible--just not expected. I believe it is in the jurisdiction of the South Nyack/Grandview Police Dept., who love to give tickets to just about anyone.
If you were in Grandview, note they fine cyclists $250 for riding two abreast...because, you know, that's far more dangerous than all the other infractions (and worse) for which they fine far less.
It's not germane to the jurisdiction where you were ticketed, but here's an outtake from my forthcoming July column in MetroSports/New York:
_________
Of course, I haven't addressed [NOTE: earlier in the article] the most numerous miscreants of all: miscreant car drivers: reckless, dangerous, drugged, deranged, drunk, mean, unstable, psychotic, immature car drivers. And let’s return to the word “bullies.” The police don’t seem interested in taking complaints from cyclists. In fact, they reflexively seem to find the cyclist at fault in collisions between cars and bikes, even when the cyclist is killed. Am I merely being cynical when I suggest we can't rely on the police in driver vs. cyclist conflicts?
+++++
Here's how the piece opens:
Individuals, like nations, only attack those who are weaker. They do it because they can do it, and do it with impunity. We have a word for them: “bullies.” Everything in the following rant follows from the fact that cyclists are relatively weak. If reckless, dangerous, inconsiderate, or merely inattentive drivers feared reprisal by cyclists in any way, you can be damn sure they wouldn’t act towards us as they do. But, alas, they don’t fear us—not in any way. Here’s a starter kit on how they might. ... (Then comes my list....)
"Lynn, check with the authority which issued the ticket, you may be able to plead your case ""ex-parte"" (by mail,) though my gut tells me you'd do better in person.
BTW, I noticed at least 1 intersection during the SIG rides where the stop sign might be visible in time from a car's driving position, but not by a cyclist on the extreme right. What does one do about such situations?"
Unlike an infraction while driving a car where the police in a small town can see that your registration or license is not renewed, an infraction while riding a bike presents a more diificlt enforcement problem for a small town police department. Of course if you don't give over proper ID (and you are not required to carry it), the police have an even harder collection problem...
"Has anyone said to a cop, ""NO, sorry, I don't have ID""? I worry that they would confiscate my bike.
Also, does a bike ticket translate as a moving violation on your license??!? This would be my bigger concern."
"...a bunch of us were ticketed for riding more than one or two abreast heading north on 9w. most of us gave our i.d. and got tickets. some of the others gave false names and got away with it.
when we showed up in court, we were individually taken to a room where they attempted to shake us down (""just pay the fine and it'll all be forgoten"") but stood our ground. we wanted to fight the charges.
when we finally got into the court room, the judge dropped the charges. as it turned out, the arresting officer ""misplaced"" his notes. on our way out the court house, we ran into the officer (nice guy). he apologized for ""all the trouble"".
:/
don"
I have been stopped by policeman and did not have ID.No problem. And yes, violations commited while riding your bike do translate to your license.
"A transportation authority whom I cited on an earlier post (5/03) wrote:
If anyone does get stuck with one of these ""fund raiser"" tickets and you have a driver's license, be sure to check that the DMV does not cite you with a moving violation on the driver's license. Bicycle infractions are NOT to count as moving violation points against your car driving license.
It helps if you give the cop some ID other than a driver's license, but this is no guarantee that they won't match your name and address anyway.
I had to contact the main DMV help office in Albany to clear a bike ticket off the license. (a sting operation at the Brooklyn end of the Bklyn Bridge a few years ago.)
"
I've never known the legal facts on this one, but for years i have had it in my head that each and every civilian is required to carry ID at all times, whether on 2 wheels, 4 (with good reason) or 2 feet. I would be delighted to learn that this is just bigbrotherish urban myth. Can some properly informed person tell me if there any such statute on the books?
"So sorry I didn't get to ride with the Cat last weekend.
Not what you're looking for in that I'm really not very sure of my ""facts"" here but, based on both some earlier comments in a similar thread and what's in my own head, I'd suggest it depends on one's immigrant status. As far as I know all resident aliens and visitors are required to carry ID but this may not be true for citizens. Perhaps someone can confirm or otherwise with more authority????
"
"Good question-- the answer will come when the Supreme Court decides a current case:
""Supreme Court hears privacy case
Rancher fined for refusing to ID himself to deputy""
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4580000/
"
"Justices Uphold a Nevada Law Requiring Citizens to Identify Themselves to the Police
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: June 22, 2004
ASHINGTON, June 21 - People who have given the police some reason to suspect that they may be involved in a crime can be required to identify themselves unless their very name would be incriminating, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that had raised concerns about the boundaries of personal privacy.
The 5-to-4 decision addressed a question that, surprisingly, had gone unresolved for decades. But the answer the court gave was hardly definitive, leaving for another day some of the more difficult issues of application.
The case was a challenge by a Nevada rancher to a state law requiring people stopped in suspicious circumstances to identify themselves on the request of a police officer. Twenty states, including New York, have such laws on their books, as do a number of cities and towns.
The rancher, Larry D. Hiibel argued that his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure and his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination were violated by the state law. Mr. Hiibel's cause was taken up by an array of groups concerned with privacy in an age when a name entered in an electronic database can provide a sometimes startling amount of personal information.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion rejected both constitutional arguments, at least as they applied to Mr. Hiibel. As a Fourth Amendment matter, Justice Kennedy said, the demand to identify oneself is a logical corollary to the circumstances of a valid police stop, as described by the court in a 1968 decision, Terry v. Ohio.
That decision permits a police officer to briefly detain, question and conduct a pat-down search of a person whose behavior has given rise to ""reasonable suspicion,"" short of the probable cause necessary for a formal arrest. Such an encounter is widely known as a ""Terry stop.""
""Obtaining a suspect's name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests,"" Justice Kennedy said. ""The request for identity has an immediate relation to the purpose, rationale and practical demands of a Terry stop,"" he added.
But as Justice Kennedy pointed out, in the 36 years since the Terry decision, the court, while permitting a police officer to question a suspect, had never explicitly decided whether the suspect had to answer or could be arrested and prosecuted for refusing. He acknowledged that a number of opinions, including a concurring opinion by Justice Byron R. White in the Terry case itself, had indicated that there was not an obligation to respond. But ""we do not read these statements as controlling,"" Justice Kennedy said, as long as the request for identification is made in the context of a valid Terry stop.
In this case, Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court, No. 03-5554, the request by a deputy sheriff for Mr. Hiibel's name was valid, Justice Kennedy concluded. The deputy had responded to a telephone report of a man hitting a woman in the cab of a truck parked along a rural road. Arriving to investigate a possible domestic assault, the deputy found a man who turned out to be Mr. Hiibel standing outside the truck, with a young woman sitting inside the cab. She turned out to be his daughter.
Eleven times, the deputy asked Mr. Hiibel for identification, and 11 times, he refused to provide it. The incident was caught by a video camera on the deputy's car, and can be seen on Mr. Hiibel's Web site, www.hiibel.com, along with Mr. Hiibel's description of the events and the following description of him: ""He lives a simple life, but he's his own man.""
Eventually, Mr. Hiibel was arrested and charged with the misdemeanor of refusing to identify himself. He was convicted and fined $250. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld his conviction.
In the ruling on Monday, the majority's analysis of Mr"
"Well, like any common criminal, I felt compelled to return to the scene of the crime. I had to see just how egregious the whole stop sign infraction really was.
The news is bad! I had thought the sign was obscured, or at least in an unexpected location. Um. Well. Sorry to admit that is waaaay not the case. Not only is the sign completely out there and obvious, but there is a sign BEFORE the stop sign that says there will soon be a stop sign, PLUS, there is actually writing on the pavement that says STOP. Oh well. So much for the communist plot theory.
I WILL say, though, in my own defense, that that driver DID see me and it is still amazing to me that I got a ticket and he didn't. He probably was confused because I did slow down and he thought I would stop. OK but still no excuse to KEEP GOING!!!
Also, while I stood there, gazing at the terrible scene, probably a half dozen cars came through and did what I did -- slow and be ready to stop but then continue on WITHOUT coming to a full stop. I even do it when I am driving. Probably not if there is a car there waiting to turn, though.
Kind of interesting how I really thought I was the queen of law abiding cyclists and I really did not see that completely obvious stop sign. I guess I am aware of different things driving than when cycling.
Driving, I would have seen and stopped at that sign. Cycling, I am more attuned to the movement of cars and their potential threat but less attuned to the ""letter of the law"" as expressed in things like stop signs. In a car, if there had been no stop sign (as I imagined), I would have zipped right past that corner and hardly noted the turning car. On a bike, I zipped past the stop sign but took careful note of the car.
interesting.
So the verdict is in: Guilty."
There are other places to ride and other ways to add mileage to the Piermont trip. A reasonable response to a Nyack ticketing blitz is to avoid it altogether.
There is a cycling friendly bagel shop in West Nyack. What would happen to businesses in Nyack and Piermont if we boycotted those towns for a month in protest? Don't you think they would miss the revenue we generated? Or wouldn't they care?
"I think that cyclists are kidding themselves if they think that the few dollars a few hundred cyclists spend in a few shops in Nyack/Piermont have much of an impact on the local enconomy, overall.
Fact is, most locals consider us to be pests. It's no secret that irritated residents have long been complaining about the ""bike problem"" at public town meetings. Hence, the periodic blitzes. If we stopped coming, they'd probably throw a parade. Oh, the Runcible might move a few less muffins, but maybe not - could be they'd get even more local business if the place wasn't packed with cyclists weekend mornings.
But you know what I say? Tough. Don't like it? Move. I mean, how many of those suburbanites come trodding down to MY neighborhood on the weekends, clogging the sidewalks, shops, and restaurants? Do I complain? Do you? And if we did, you know the answer would be, ""Why do you live here, then?"".
Maybe that's it. A counter-offensive. How 'bout a campaign to lobby the NYPD to ""get tough"" on those BMW's coming over the bridges. Use bike cops too, just to get the point across...
"
I think that cyclists are kidding themselves if they think that the few dollars a few hundred cyclists spend in a few shops in Nyack/Piermont have much of an impact on the local enconomy, overall.
Rockland County had gotten themselves into fiscal trouble in the past being too dependent on sales tax as its source for revenue. More so for towns and villages located in the eastern portion of the county like Nyack.
Ironically, those same residents that complain about cyclists also do the same for the Palisades mall and the proposed widening of the TZ bridge.
I would not underestimate the impact of a cyclists boycott. Those same residents can then complain why their property taxes will be increased (to cover local sales tax shortfall) and the sparser selection of retail venues.
The entity that isssues the excessive number of tickets and enforces the $250 single file fine is Grandview/South Nyack, which has zero commercial establishments. Since the TZ bridge wiped out their village, traffic tickets are the only source of revenue. Cops in Piermont and Nyack proper have, in my experience, been quite benign towards cyclists.
Wouldn't a better solution be to ride cautiously, observe all the stop signs and traffic lights, ride single file and stay to the right and not give cops a reason to ticket us? Isn't that the stuff we all learn in the SIG's?
If you boycott Nyack, what exactly is it you are boycotting? The fact that they give out tickets to people who break the law? I haven't heard anyone say they were not guilty of the infraction they were ticketed for.
I don't like getting tickets any more than anyone else but the law is quite clear. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
very true, Tom.
That's why Tom was a 2 term President.
It was 3 terms - it only seemed like 2.
"Just to add, notwithstanding the thread's title, Lynn readily admitted that she made a mistake and did not claim persecution. AFAIK, Nyack is generally bike friendly. It's Grandview and Piermont where we have perpetual problems. At least now, the ""locals"" will get to see our names on a sign (9W, south of Tallman Park) every time they enter and leave town. With that, I invite you to join Mark Gelles and me as we fulfill our ""adopt a highway"" obligations and pick up the trash on Sat, 7/31.
:)"
"It's been interesting to read the thoughts my original post has brought out. To clarify, though, I still do feel that I was (somewhat) unfairly treated.
In strictest legal terms, I did it and I am culpable. But the driver, who nearly hit me, was not held responsible. I don't know how that can be right even if he DID have the right of way. Plus, as I posted, when I returned to the ""scene of the crime"" I saw a half a dozen cars do just what I did on my bike -- slow and be ready to stop but slide through slow-motion-like. Point being it's a common enough approach to take at a stop sign and not normally ticketed for, I don't think.
I skipped that sign and I accept the fine, but I still feel the driver got off and I got zapped. The scene was technically defensible but still betrays, for my $$$ (and too much of it at that) a pro-car, anti-bike bias. And I am also a driver, so I feel that I can see the other side of things."
"Do you not understand it is easier and potentially safer for cops to snag cyclists than to snag drivers--and those seem to be the generally governing principles of police officers when it comes to enforcement.
A few years ago I asked a policeman in Central Park why he didn't ticket a car that was in the park illegally, and waiting at a red light right next to him?
Said the cop, ""Aw, he knew what he was doing was wrong.""
There you have it: if you're ever caught doing something illegal, just explain to the officer you know what you're doing is wrong. He'll let you go.
Richard"
If a cop saw a car driving the wrong way on a one way street, do you think they wouldn't issue a ticket? My guess is they would. Yet, I see bicycle delivery people and even real cyclists riding the wrong way on one way streets every day, sometimes in full view of the police who don't appear to be concerned in the least. I can also say that if I drove with the same flagrent disregard of stop signs and traffic lights that I often exhibit when I'm cycling, not only would I not have a driver's license, my car would be impounded and I'd probably be in jail.
Not that I am endorsing such behavior, just stating the facts.
"Tom wrote: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
The irrepresible writer in me offers, instead, ""Don't do the crime if you can't pay the dime.""
"
Didn't Robert Blake play Baretta? I never saw the show, but isn't he charged with murdering his wife to which charge he claimed he went back into a restaurant to retrieve his pistol which he said he left there when he returned to his car only to find his wife had been killed?
If he can't do the time, well, this gives a new meaning to poetic justice.
