gecho

As a cyclist breaking a law you don't want a jury because of the "I hate those guys" factor. As a motorist being charged with something against a cyclist, you absolutely want a jury because of the "that could have been me" factor.

wphamilton

It's not unusual for prosecutors to tell you that a court never dismisses tickets. He is just trying to intimidate you.

Often, at the court you will have an opportunity to have a pre-hearing conference with the prosecutor. If that's not happening automatically you can request one. The conference is a negotiation, where the prosecutor may offer a lesser offence with a reduced fine and no points, to save the court time and money for a guilty plea. Most people accept that, the judge rubber-stamps it and you're done. Keep in mind, no matter how he acts, that the prosecutor is your adversary, working for the court and not in your interests, and his only concern is getting the most pleas that he can while saving court time and money.

There's nothing to say that you can't tell him no, that you're innocent and you want a hearing. If there is no one there to testify against you, you win. If you don't testify against yourself.

And of course, don't demand a jury for something this trivial.

spectastic

thanks for the advise. My friend was telling me I should try to negotiate for community service, considering I'm in grad school and my $/hr isn't very high. Also, I'd much rather give back to the community than dump $200 into that hole.

MMACH 5

Go prepared with rumrunn's pared down defense.
Just out of highschool I was a delivery driver and got paid per delivery. This meant the more I delivered in a day, the more I got paid, so I drove about 15-20 over the speed limit for most of the day. I got dozens of speeding tickets in that time. I took every one of them to court. If the cop didn't show up in court, the ticket was automatically dismissed. If the cop showed up, I never had a judge rule in my favor.

I'm in Dallas and while cycling tickets are rare, I've heard that the cops almost never show up when the cyclists fight it in court.

howsteepisit

If you cannot pay the fine don't do the crime.

However, in this age of traffic non-enforcement, I feel for ya. It sucks.

Milton Keynes

I would leave out this part of the argument. You're not going to win the judge over by telling him/her that the only reason you're there is so that he/she has a job.

spectastic

i was not going to try to win over the judge, but the jury. however, i'm now leaning towards negotiating for community service with the prosecutor, and avoid shenanigans with the court

MixedRider

Be prepared to pay. Honestly, a police officer saw you run a red light and gave you a ticket. That is tough to beat. If you say you stopped and looked for traffic, the judge would ask if you saw the police officer, would you have still proceeded? Or he would ask if you were in a car would you have proceeded?


But. How did the traffic stop go?

andr0id

There's a lot of cyclists in Austin, but they run red lights and stops signs like prima donnas and piss off motorists to no end. Voir dire will get anybody that's ever looked at a bicycle thrown off the jury and the OP will get a 6 month sentence smashing boulders.

That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it!

I almost got rear ended by a car doing laps on Shoal Creek because I actually STOPPED at the stop sign!

memebag

1. A "rolling stop" is a contradiction. If you were rolling, you weren't stopped.
2. If you were looking, why didn't you see the cop?

Leisesturm

Actually that would serve as proof to me that I should just call it a lesson learned and pay the fine. The officer really wanted a piece of him. Why, I don't know. Completely undisclosed in their narrative is the particulars of the interaction that lead up to the Service of a Summons. Hmmmm. I'm kind of surprised at the supportive tone of this thread overall. I am far from judging the o.p. I've run more lights than I have had hot meals, and expect to run several more before the month is out. Moving to the city has somewhat cramped my style because the traffic density in downtown Portland makes habitual red light running very unwise. Ironically, in NYC which is far denser, and with far more aggressive drivers, red light running is the rule rather than the exception. I haven't figured out why it is so much harder to safely run reds in a city with 5k thousand people per sq/mi vs one with 30k people per sq./mi. but that appears to be the case.

I would die laughing if I was a traffic judge and a cyclist caught red handed (nyuk) violating a traffic statute offered the kind of manifesto defense that was posted above. Even the edited plea offered by another poster sounds more like dissembling, than mature acceptance of responsibility. I mean... I agree fully with all their stated objections but have to wonder that the o.p. seems unaware of how unlikely they are to elicit much sympathy from a traffic judge.

Currmudge

Nothing really wrong with fighting the ticket -- I just have to SMH at the 'righteous indignation' of getting ticketed for running a red. Time to grow up, the reasons for various laws don't always have to make sense TO YOU.

This reminds me of something I recently said to my sister: "American exceptionalism" exists more because far too many Americans think they're entitled to be the exception to rules they slam everyone else with.

Bmach

Rumrunn and others never ever talk with a cop. Anything you say will be written down and used against you. If you say nothing you do not have to worry about anything you said to him.

PaulH

Just man up and pay the fine. Stop whining.

CB HI

The Colorado bill did NOT pass.

Rowan

Gee, a guy here could be really mischievous and send a link to this thread to the relevant court and prosecutor for perusal about attitude. Shouldn't be too difficult to connect the dots to the OP and an upcoming case of a cyclist ignoring a red light, especially as there has been disclosure of so many details.

This thread serves as a very strong reason to seek professional assistance in legal matters rather than seeking amateurs to do the work. A case of too much information for public consumption.

spectastic

this has nothing to do with exceptionalism. it has to do with a broken system that wastes tax dollars paying cops to collect money from good citizens. 44 tickets were written on bike to school day at the ut campus a couple of years ago, because of some dip**** cop poaching a stop sign. a jaywalker who was jogging was arrested for failure to identify. my friend got pinned to the ground when reaching for his phone, after he ran a red light downtown. none of this makes the public any safer. the courts are supposed to provide a service, not be a parasite on society. resisting this bull**** is not exceptionalism. it's common sense.

coominya

No wonder cyclists have a bad name with an attitude like that. You're a law unto yourself.

Daniel4

The courts and ERs are filled with people who think their judgment is better than everyone else's.

unterhausen

"rolling stop" is a term of art. This is how Central PA motorists approach right turn on red and stop signs, they almost never come to a complete stop if they don't see oncoming traffic. Neither do the cops, so apparently it counts unless you're on a bike. I have come to believe that if we had brake lights, people wouldn't be as up in arms over cyclists rolling stop signs.

As far as your second question, if there are witnesses, I stop. I mean, I almost always stop, but I definitely stop when there are witnesses. The opportunity to piss off a motorist that wasn't going to stop is also something to be treasured. Then again, I don't live in a big city with horrible light cycles and times of day when there is zero traffic.

Tanstaafl

Dude, you are nothing but exceptionalism. You ran a red light. You broke the law. You got caught. And you have spent this whole thread going on and on about how it is so unfair you were ticketed when you have all these great reasons it was OK for you to run that red light. It seems you do think you should be above the law, at least in this case.

I am sure everyone in here would agree that some laws are stupid. "Thou shalt not run red lights" is not one of them, but that is just my opinion.

I break traffic laws all the time. Like you, I have all sorts of personal reasons why I believe it is OK to do so. I do rolling stops. I don't always come to a complete stop before turning right on red. I drive 4-5 mph over the speed limit; I used to do 5-6 over until a nice DPS trooper lit me up for 81 in a 75.

Do I think it was BS to get pulled over for 81 in a 75 on a straight-as-an-arrow road in West Texas? Absolutely. But the rules say 75; they don't say "whatever Jeff thinks is reasonable".

You played the game and got caught cheating. Pay the price and move on.

mzr

Hell yeah dude, fight the power. If you go into the court and they have gold fringed flags, its an Admiralty court. Just walk in there and say "I'm not a boat, I'm a free man on the land!" then spin 360 degrees and walk out of there. The judge will be so thoroughly owned that they'll rip the robe off and burn it right then and there. They'll finally know how much of a tool they were for the man.

Rowan

Cops and courts love being described as parasites on society. Sure fire way to get a fine reduced or a ticket cancelled. Not.

Best you stay away from court lest you feel the need to let the court really know what you think.

gecho

I think there should be a proportionality for driving offenses based on the threat a vehicle poses to others. Say $10 for cyclists failing to stop, $200 for a compact, $300 for sedan, $500 for SUV / light truck and a 2x multiplier for people who drive as part of their job (taxis, delivery drivers, etc) due to the high number of hours they spend on the road.

copperfind

I was a cop for 20 years and I have to say that cop was an *******.