Harassment of cyclists in New Jersey
 

Police officers in Perth Amboy, New Jersey confiscated bikes and placed at least one rider in custody. Their crime: riding through town without city-issued bike license tags. The riders were not residents of Perth Amboy.

https://www.rawstory.com/riding-bike...-license-tags/

Here's another article about it:
https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2021/04...is-raging.html

Here is a link to the City of Perth Amboy Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan published in January 2016:
https://cues.rutgers.edu/perth-amboy...AL-1-18-16.pdf

Page 50 features a recommendation to end the requirement to license bicycles:
"Bicycle Licensing (§ 158-1 through 8) This section sets forth licensing requirements for bicycle travel in the city. However, these requirements are unnecessary, difficult to enforce, set unfair burdens on bike usage, and may discourage regional bicycle trips to destinations within the city – especially for bicyclists from nearby municipalities that do not have similar requirements. The City should remove this requirement."

Page 51-53 adds more bike-friendly suggestions including adding bicycle parking accommodations to the building code, bicycle/pedestrian education, and...
"Bicycle Maps and Brochures The City should consider developing maps and brochures that identify existing bicycle and pedestrian routes and connections, including pedestrian bridges and tunnels. By highlighting preferred routes for walking and biking, these maps can be useful to both residents and visitors. Maps can also contain information about the benefits of non-motorized transportation, walking and biking safety tips, relevant traffic laws, bicycle parking locations, and information about local biking or walking groups."

Doesn't sound like Perth Amboy acted on this plan. I bet they wish they had over the next few weeks.

PD claims he wasn't arrested, he was taken into "protective custody" in handcuffs. Protective from what, exactly?

Good stuff.
So many ignorant comments.

I live in NJ and for the past year or so there has been a pretty widespread issue where young cyclists ride through the center of towns for no other reason than to disrupt pedestrians and vehicles.
I can’t know for sure but this definitely seems to be another instance of that behavior. One of their favorite things to do is pedal up to someone very fast and skid to a stop right in front of them to scare them. They mostly do it to older people.
They also like to ride wheelies and disrupt the already slow traffic in the center of town.

My local town FB page has been buzzing with it for awhile now. For the most part I try to defend the riders as young kids just blowing off steam but either way what they are doing is wrong and I am not surprised that it appears that another town tried to use an id or tag loophole to crack down on it.

Either way it certainly doesn’t appear to be a race issue. Unless ofc you are the type that makes everything a race issue :rolleyes:

You should maybe watch an entire video before you post it :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Of course I watched the video. If you have something to say about the kids, then say it.

This is one reason why I moved away from the big city (I lived outside Washington DC). Just too many stupid rules...a license for a bike:wtf:

So many problems like this coming out of big cities. The more people you cram into an area, the more stupid rules there are.

BTW, the one cop seemed to have the situation under control, then all of a sudden the others came out of nowhere to confiscate the bikes....:notamused:

Good stuff considering I already said it in my above post.
What do you have to say though about the kids intentionally swerving in front of cars as part of the video/story you posted?

Disrupting vehicles! OH MY GOD, WE CANNOT HAVE THIS! ARREST THEM!

As usual, the Advocacy & Safety forum does not disappoint, with full-on support of car dominance, victim-blaming of cyclists, and quite often, overt racism.

If you use terms like "false flag", describe yourself as "conservative" or a "patriot", or straight-up deny that racism exists: you are probably a racist.

oh I know this one: Get off my lawn, right?

Since the cop was going on and on about them being in the street and not having licenses. Watch the video yourself.

And by the way, you said nothing about those kids in your post. Unless you think they're a roving gang who target your own town and facebook friends?

Okay, I'll bite.
They were acting like jerks. The police officers stopped them, asked them politely not to ride like jerks. A couple of them got loud mouthed and got what they deserved, using a little enforced statute in the law.
How's that?

I don't understand using a "loophole" to arrest/confiscate. If someone is breaking the law, then act on that, why bring in the issue of license for a bike? As for racism, I don't see that in this case, the cops that confiscated the bike were not exactly pasty whities :)

I do understand the issue of riding around like a "gang" (I use that term loosely); they're kids, luckily the things I did on bikes when I was that age wasn't recorded:D

There are so many layers here to uncover, but I think most of it has to do with large cities and the problems that seem to come with living in them.

These kids were just having fun, though in their youthful exuberance, didn't realize the danger to themselves and others in their behaviour. I remember doing stuff like this as well, ignorant of consequences, and am thankful that I survived. I have no doubt that this licensing law was enacted in response to citizen complaints about such behaviour and likely the intent was to give the police leverage to control it. I can also see that the police are frustrated - they want to satisfy the citizenry but also to allow kids to be kids (safely). The whole theater of this "police action" was likely to just send a message to the kids that this is a serious thing, but I doubt that it is a long term solution. That community would be better served by working with the kids and their parents to come up with a better, more sustainable, outlet for their energy.

I'm impressed by the skill of some of these kids.

Stay on target or we'll just move it to P&R

Awesome.
More ignorance from someone who obviously didn’t watch the video that this post is based upon.
The cyclists were also passing and then turning to surround vehicles driving in the road.
You keep doing you though, snowflake :thumb:

This ^^^

Well stated and I agree for the most part.

What I saw was officers haranguing them about bike licenses which, ordinance or no, they had no legitimate authority to. I wouldn't have gotten mouthy, but only because I'm older and wiser and know how that turns out. These are kids, being wronged by authority - backtalk should be expected.

If they're too unruly, just warn them off. The cops got that wrong also, because most of what they were doing was no big deal. Just the idea, the nerve of those kids, taking up the street was the gist of it. But that wasn't what the cops acted on; they acted on the license issue. You're implying that it was a pretext for the cop's disruption and heavy handed result, a pretext because they didn't or couldn't cite "riding like jerks". I'd tend to agree that it did look like they used the (probably illegal) ordinance as a pretext for punishing the kids.

... and if you ever use the term "snowflake", you are probably a racist.

No comment on the fact that the video clearly shows the cyclists passing vehicles and then intentionally circling back to surround the vehicles to block them?
That’s what you are now trying to defend as just some kids riding like jerks?
Good stuff lol

Sorry, but I'm not going to comment on things that only happened in some poster's imagination. Even if it was relevant (it's not). Bottom line: bikes were taken, kids arrested, for not having city bike licenses.

More proof that you didn’t even watch the whole video.
Good stuff :thumb:

Probably, wouldn't have happened if the kids weren't riding like *******s. That's an important part of the story. One you are conveniently ignoring.

You want to get rid of bike licenses in your city it's easy. Just go to court. Every time they bring in licenses the costs of enforcing them quickly end up costing the city huge amounts.

7+ cops to confiscate a bike under a bylaw, and arrest two teenagers? Looks racist to me.