NYPD Slaps Cyclist With The Biggest Red Light Ticket We've Seen
 

http://www.businessinsider.com/nypd-...t%202012-10-12 :mad::mad::mad:

Cyclist was in the wrong, but so was the cop for not stopping dude after the first offense.

Why is that? I was ticketed twice on one trip at the same photo radar for speeding. They weren't progressively larger tickets, but the fact that I broke the law two times earned me two tickets. Cyclists would think twice about breaking laws if they knew that they were being monitored. If I rob 10 stores in a row on a single day & the police simply monitor my behavior and the nab me in the end I'm guilty of all 10 robberies.

Great revenue maker.

Here in Illinoisy, outside of Chicago (where all lights are on timers, evidently), the State has recognised that bicyclists and motocyclists are incapable of registering on the magnetic sensors that will trigger a light change, so we have a 120 second "go if traffic is clear" law. Our State is stupid in many respects, but at least is helpful.

I think that story is along the lines of "giving him enough rope to hang himself." He had two extra chances to redeem himself and get off scott free. Also, how did he not know there was a police car behind him? He was NOT maintaining full situational awareness, there, but then, the headphones were a dead giveaway about that! :innocent: If I were a police officer, I'd have let this guy wrack up the fines as well, on the theory that a whopping economic hardship will drive home a lesson that a lesser fine might not. :bang:

i don't think the question was if he was breaking the law. i think the question is whether it is ethical for a cop to allow someone to break the law several times (a law btw that is intended to keep the offender and pedestrians safe) before pulling them over, apparently for the purpose of ratcheting up the fines.

perhaps the cop was hindered by one of the red lights or traffic, hence why it took several violations before he caught the cyclist. that would certainly be reasonable to me. letting violations happen in front of you without stopping the violations is not chill simply as a matter of policy.

But it is one of the aspects of photo radar that can have an identical impact on motorists. Using the logic presented in this thread, a motorist who runs 3 red lights and is caught on all 3 by photo radar should only be fined once since he wasn't warned after the first offence. Once I became aware that I had no way of knowing I'd just been caught speeding & could be caught again & again on one trip, it slowed me down. There should be no requirement for any method of catching lawbreakers to warn these people that they are breaking the law so they can limit their fines & be more wary in the future. I don't believe for a minute that this cyclist was unaware that he was breaking the law. He ran all 3 lights knowing that it was illegal and should suffer the consequences.

i think you missed the point. there is a BIG difference between the radar and the officer - the photo radar cannot stop the next violation from happening. the officer can. i am not talking about this from only the cyclist's perspective - perhaps the opposite. imagine if you are legally walking across the street and get hit by the cyclist running the third red light. you require hospitalization, and the bill is pretty hefty. if you found out that the reason that the cop didn't stop him was because he was hoping to increase the cyclist's fines, wouldn't you be mad? using the robbery example from above, if you were the owner of the 2nd through 10th store that was robbed, wouldn't you be mad that the officer didn't arrest the guy after the first violation witnessed?

1) Cyclist was in the wrong.
2) Sounds like NY Police have a chip on their shoulder about cyclists and that may be well-founded BUT to cite 3 instances 'just because' is out of line....unless the person is a repeat-offender and mouthy(imagine a New Yorker being that way).

My guess is the cyclist deserved it.

You're right, I'm approaching this from the perspective of the guy running 3 lights & deserving 3 tickets. I'm not that concerned that in this case, the cop let him repeatedly break the law. I'm guessing the cop figured given the current road conditions the likelihood of the cyclist causing an accident was low.

Road cyclists are a menace, what with their deadly killer 20lb bicycles and all.

So of course the most important thing is to follow and punish him for not being a threat? Nothing more important to do?

yeah it does seem a bit strange that behavior apparently so inconsequential as to not require the officer to pull him over until there are three violations should necessitate a $1500 fine.

What does being a threat have to do with breaking the law? I agree that $1,500 is an unreasonable fine.

Yeah, and that big old fat dentist on top.

The cop is onto something. He could follow a car for a few miles, rack up all the speeding and rolling stop violations, and Bingo! 10 tickets in a few minutes would make the $1500 look like chump change

Yes, although if the cop was in the store that you robbed first, he wouldn't let you keep robbing stores and then arrest you at the end of the day. You would be busted the moment you stepped outside the door.

He broke the law (multiple times),got caught, and desrves the punishment.

I work in an area where the cyclists have taken over. The local laws are in favor of the bikes, and they have actually stated that they are trying to rid the city of automobiles! Cyclists here are rarely seen obeying any traffic or pedestrian laws. As a fellow cyclist, I am apalled an embarrased by their behavior. As a result, I refuse to ride anywhere near Portland, because I do not wish to be associated with these people. They give our sport/hobby a bad name. I am all for sharing the roads - and that means that I am courteous and safe when in a car, or on my bike.

The interesting question here is whether this is within the intent of the legislature's escalating penalty requirement. The fine is so high because of a requirement that re-offenders pay escalating fines, on the theory that the first fine clearly was not enough of a deterrent. So his initial fine was low -- $150 or so -- but by the third one it was $900 or something.

To me, that's the problem here. As I read it, the escalating penalty requirement was meant to apply only if you keep re-offending after getting caught -- if the original fine was not enough deterrent. What the legislature apparently meant to cover was the guy who just wouldn't learn his lesson -- who would get caught, pay the fine, shrug, and do it again. Here, the guy ran three red lights -- which, alright, is pretty brazen. But he never re-offended after getting the first fine -- he just got three tickets at once. So is it right that the escalating penalty applied in this situation, where you don't have a repeat offender?

Well, that's the other curious thing. Apparently judges consider this sort of ticket writing to be "double-dipping" -- technically they're separate crimes, but if a guy runs three red lights in a row a judge usually won't allow three tickets. So all this guy had to do was contest the tickets, and he'd be off with the fine that a person might normally get for running a single red light -- the court likely would not treat him like a three-time loser. But he didn't want to contest the tickets in part because he really and truly was guilty. So the facte that he gets worse treatment by rightfully owning up to it and admitting guilty just seems backwards.

I don't know what the going rate for a lawyer in NYC is (maybe it was cheaper to just pay the whole $1550?) but the cyclist should have only had one ticket against him, not multiples at the same time. If he did something wrong (which we assume he did) then it was the cop's responsibility to stop him after the first one.

To the guy who started that thread asking where he should go for a road bike vacation: not NYC.

The moral imperative for the police force, and laws, is to protect the rights of citizens. In this case, that would imply there was no greater issue that might have been dealt with in the time he was following the cyclist. See the infraction, write the ticket, move on. I am quite certain that if an officer followed you around for a while, you could be handed a substantial stack of tickets by the end of a day, or less.

Hell, do we even get drug users on a three strikes law if they have three "doses" in their possession?

I love my NY sports teams. The rest of the city... let's just say, not so much.

Really? I think most New Yorkers imagine most people marry their cousins in Tennessee.

I heard about the same thing happening in the late 80's to a messenger except it was 8 red lights and the guy got 8 tickets.
Don't know how it panned out in the end.
In NYC cars run them quite a bit actually, I see it everyday.

A reasonable Judge will reduce it to one ticket. The rider will also pay for the headphone thing which is actually pretty stupid, and he deserves to learn from.
Biking thru red lights though: Meh... They are optional, as long as its safe, if you stop at each one you might as well be driving car.

I, as well as thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers run red lights everyday and in front of Police cars and officers.

The thing is, you have to be smart about it. You don't do it on the busy, heavily trafficked streets. But if you're in an everyday Brooklyn/Manhattan neighborhood and you come to a light, 9 times out of 10 people/police/etc. won't even look at you wrong.

I bet this guy was on Broadway or something like that.