The cop is pointing to the “rules of the road” on the Citi Bike, insisting what he is doing has something to do with safety…
Yesterday morning on the radio I heard a story of yet another traffic “accident”: A car in the East Village had “jumped the curb” and plowed into a bodega, injuring 8 people in the process, one of them severely. A few hours later I happened to be cycling through the same neighborhood when I came upon a police officer standing next to a bike lane, watching me approach. I had a red light and stopped. As soon as he saw that I had stopped, he seemed to lose interest in me. I had a hunch he was there just to ticket cyclists and asked him about it. He said that’s exactly what he was doing. A few minutes later I saw him writing a ticket to a guy on a Citi Bike. I won’t retell the whole story here, because I told it to Gothamist:
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But the gist is this. The NYPD’s 9th precinct, just hours after yet another motor vehicle caused carnage on the streets, was engaged in a concerted, targeted ticketing blitz against people on bicycles. In the case of the gentleman I encountered, the citation was actually frivolous. But either way: This is wrong. This is wrong, no matter what you think about cyclists, no matter how much you may think that everyone should follow the same laws and anyone “caught” for infractions is getting their just desserts… this is simply wrong. The fact is, our resources for enforcing traffic laws are limited. Cops could ticket jaywalkers all day long, but they don’t. Speeding cars kill hundreds of New Yorkers each year. Bikes doing anything kill zero New Yorkers each year. The 9th precinct handed out 11 speeding tickets in ALL OF 2012. I suspect they ticketed more cyclists yesterday alone. These directives come from above, and needs to be addressed. Where do our priorities lie?