Originally Posted by
genec
Since I don't ride CM rides, I doubt I will have a problem... I have ridden my bike through many CA cities without issue, including Long Beach. I suspect it was the CM issue that was the real problem. As I stated just how legal are CM rides in the first place? Could that have been the real reason for bike confiscation? Or do you just want to ignore that aspect?
You seem to want to ignore that there were bicycles confiscated solely for not having a Long Beach registration for cyclist that did not live in Long Beach. That was flat out an illegal action by the Long Beach police. Any other traffic violations by the cyclist should have been solely handled with a tickets as required by CA law. So what if you did not get your bike confiscated yet, just takes one ass cop to turn that around.
I have ridden in the first several critical mass rides in Honolulu. In fact, when they were getting started in Honolulu, my sole purpose for riding in them was to provide the influence to keep them within the traffic laws. A fairly new cop stopped one ride and the scared college kid that got CM going, started caving to the cops demand that the ride should have a parade permit. I stepped in and asked the cop how many weekend motorcycle club rides or Corvette club drives had he stopped and demanded they get a parade permit? Answer none - then he said that some of the cyclist were making a lot of noise and were riding in all the traffic lanes. I pointed out that those cyclist were making less noise than any of the tourist buses or the motorcyclist that just drove by and the cyclist in every lane were riding at the same speed as the backed up motor traffic which made their using those lanes legal, so why did he not pull over ALL of the slow moving traffic. He then said 2 or 3 of the cyclist in the back went through the light as it turned red and I noted that 2 or 3 cars went through the same light late. When I asked him how many cars he had pulled over during the day for going through the light late, he had to say NONE. I then asked him why he pulled over all the cyclist for what he saw as a traffic violation of just 2-3 cyclist and 2-3 motorist. Cop had no answer.
During the ride, a couple of skate boarders and a roller bladder joined in riding in the roadway. The cop tried to lay that on the cyclist and was also why he pulled use over. I agreed with him that their behavior was illegal and asked why he had pulled over the legal riding cyclist while letting the illegal skate boarders and a roller bladder run away. At this point the cop agreed that he should not have pulled us over and we left.
Several cops followed us for the next full loop through Waikiki. Pretty cool watching all those cyclist riding strict VC, signaling every lane change and turn, and the cops frustration at not being able to do a dame thing.