Traffic Ticket Question
Hi - I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice. I got stopped by a police officer earlier today at 1st Ave and 20th Street because I was "operating a bicycle with more than 1 earphone" on. I had one earphone (right side) turned on while my left earphone was turned off. It is my bad for not knowing the law that we can't have both earphones in your ears while one is turned on. I explained all of this to the police officer and she told me how is she supposed to believe that one of the earphones was turned off. So I told her to go ahead and try on my earphones and you'll know if I am lying to you or not. She refused to try it on and asked for my ID. I told her that I didn't have it with me and that I accidentally left my wallet with my license in it and that is the reason why i am heading back home. I even told her that if she followed me home, I could run up to my apt and grab my wallet to show her my license. She said she'll just take down my information instead. She then proceeded to ask me my name, DOB and address and eventually issued me the traffic ticket and walked away. When I looked at the ticket, I noticed that my first name was completely spelled incorrectly and she missed part of my street name as well. Would anyone know what happens if I decide not to pay the fine and ignore it since some of the information in the ticket is incorrect? I can't really afford to pay the fine and don't really believe that I should pay such a high fine ($138). I could understand paying less than $50 seems more reasonable...but $138?!? I also can't afford to miss a day of work to go to court to dispute the ticket. Any thoughts? Also, it got me thinking...how can an officer issue a ticket to someone without an ID and believe what that person will tell them? What if someone provided information of an enemy or someone else? Makes no sense. Either way, I must be having one bad and unlucky day because after i was issued the ticket, about 15 blocks later, I got sidelined by a car turning left and not yielding when I had the right away. Thankfully, i didn't fall over and injure myself. Somehow, when I got hit, I managed to land on my left leg to support me from falling to the side or off my bike. After the man in the car saw i was fine, he quickly sped away. I didn't even have time to react and reach for my phone to take a picture of his license. I also looked around and didn't see a single police officer in sight. It's funny but disappointing that I got a ticket today but the driver who hit me didn't and could have easily injured me or someone else. Makes no sense how they are busy issuing tickets to cyclists and not issuing tickets to reckless drivers... Also, can someone tell me why the city needs 3 officers to issue tickets to cyclists at the very same location?
Last edited by NYC_Biker_1; 08-15-19 at 05:50 PM.