Originally Posted by
tom cotter
For those of you cyclist who have never gone thru a red light, ridden on a sidewalk and always obey every traffic law, thanks for the moralistic replies.
The point is, in jersey there is a huge fight going on between the police unions and the state, cities and towns who employ them. The towns are trying to reduce cost and laying off police is now in the fore front of getting that done. The police unions are saying- no way- to do so is to compromise public safety. AC is one of the places this battle is being fought. It is against this backdrop that the ticket was issued.
It is hard to believe that an officer with 24 years experience, the officer who issued my ticket, couldn't be better utilized by a city with such visable crime problems as AC. A city where the police union is claiming it needs every officer to effectively protect the public. Essentially, counting the officer's complete benefits packeage, this officer is pulling down in excess of $100,000 a year. That's 24 years of experience and $100k plus wasted on writing nusiance tickets. In lean times, a poor use of resources.
DC, the conversation between myself and the officer was polite. I was the second person he found on the boards, as he had just started and i was a block from the police station on the boards. He gave the first guy a ticket as well. He told me he was under mandatory orders from the Public Safety Director to ticket everyone. Nice little revenue raiser!!! And, so you know, the boardwalk riding laws are not enforced in AC or anywhere along the jersey shore on weekdays off season.
I asked if his time could be better spent getting the drug addicts off the beach. He said he doesn't bother because they don't show up for court and don't pay the fines. Now, if i don't show up and don't pay up a bench warrant is issued for my arrest. Apparently, the drug users get a pass. Why? because AC can't make any money off of criminals. The thinking is "let's fleece the law biding citizens." That's exactly what they doing.
Then I would say that what you need to do is what has been suggested earlier work with other cyclists to get the law(s) changed.
And by your own admission in this case you were not a "law abiding" citizen. You knew what the law was and choose to break it. I would suggest that if you do not wish to get another ticket for this same offense is to either not ride your bike on the boards after the designated hours by either walking your bike (you still haven't answered the question as to whether or not the law "bans" all bicycle after a certain hour or just bicycles being ridden) or finding an alternative route to where you're going that doesn't require you to ride the boards.
The bottom line here is that knowing what the law is/was you choose to ride where you knew you weren't suppose to be. Could that officer's time been better utilized else where? Sure, who knows, but you and the other cyclist were breaking the law. No matter how you try to justify it by saying that during the week/off season that the police turns a "blind eye" to the offenders doesn't mean that it's going to stay that way.
It's not the cops fault that he gave you a ticket for riding on the boards, it's your fault for riding on the boards when you knew that you weren't suppose to.