Slingithajime

I cruised through an intersection with no cross traffic on a side street and got pulled over by a cop. The sneaky motorcycle cop was stalking behind a building. There were stop signs so yes I did break the law. When I got the ticket in the mail though, it was $253!!!! WTF?

Tomorrow I have my court date and I am going to ask for leniency and argue to have my fine reduced. Right now I am looking for other citations that incur penalties of less than $250. The punishment is way our of wack with the crime.

Has anyone been in this position? What did you say in front of the judge? I know a bicycle is considered a vehicle by the state but $250. . . come on. Love your feedback.

PS: I live in Santa Monica, CA. Our state is broke so who knows if i can wiggle out of this one.

CliftonGK1

All the rights and priveleges of a motor vehicle includes the same structure of penalties and fines. To the officer who wrote the ticket, rolling a stop sign is no different on a bike than a station wagon doing the same thing.

PluperfectArson

lrn2rulesoftheroad

You broke the law; he gave you a fine.

Now, you will be more conscious of hidden cops. If there were side streets, you should have darted down those. Also, I cannot offer you any insight, as I have never been pulled over on my bicycle. I always check my surroundings before breaking the law.

dsh

I'd say you have a good chance at getting the fine reduced if you are mature about it and take responsibility in front of the judge. Focus on the fact that you made very sure there was no traffic before proceeding, but that you understand you should have come to a full stop.

Judges are people, and there's a reason the system allows for leniency. Unless you're being a jackass I don't see any reason they'd make you pay the full amount.

randing

I hear you on CA traffic fines. Last year I got a ticket in Glendale for having a headlight bulb out. It was around Christmas and I forgot about it/missed the court date. That made my fine go from something like $25 straight to something like $500. I scheduled another court date, got dressed up, and talked to the judge. He knocked it down to around $150 and I'm still a bit sore from paying that much from what started as a "fix-it" ticket.

robncircus

You should know better. Don't go blowing stops in the beach communities. That includes Redondo, Manhattan Beach, and Santa Monica. Go try and get it reduced and stop at stop signs in the future.

Rob

shortshorts

Good luck fella.
You should hire this guy just in case.

alexgate

i blow them all the time in sf. anything to worry about?

gelpicorp

stop signs aim to help cars from hitting each other and protect both drivers.

if you blazed through a stop sign and got hit by a car, you'd be dead and the car'd be scratched.

as a lesser vehicle on the road, i'd think a stop sign would be your biggest friend.

yes it sucks, but would a tiered stop sign/red light/speeding ticket system be fair?

$300 - car
$200 - motorcycle
$50 - moped
$5 - bike

i don't think so. because dead people can result out of disobeying them all the same.

not saying your a bad cyclist at all, but this is just a generalized statement:

how come cyclists want the same road status and rights, but don't want to follow the same rules?

lights, signs, even flow of traffic.

ilikebikes

If you would have paid the fine and "fixed it" you wouldn't be sore.

gelpicorp

PS ... i made an illegal right turn on red in a car and the cop and judge didn't give a care that i made sure no cars were coming.

ilikebikes

Yeah dude, I've been bent over by the city before, it's no fun, I'll bet if a car went though the stop sign and wacked into you the cop prob would have blamed you for that too.

dsh

The judge probably hears that 50 times a day from people in cars. The cyclist should at least have novelty on his side.

gelpicorp

LOL, yeah you got a point there! I bet a beach cruiser would stand a better chance than a tarck bike. whatcha think?

randing

I was at my mom's in Arizona for a few weeks around December for the holidays and for a friend who was in the hospital with pancreatitis, so I just forgot about it. Sh*t happens, but $25 to $500 is still pretty steep.

randing

To the OP: just get dressed up, be respectful of the judge ("yes, sir"), admit your fault and don't come up with some elaborate story because he hears those all day long.

dsh

If he was on a unicycle I bet he'd get off scot free.

gelpicorp

from my experience, i probably wouldn't even say you checked to ensure no one was coming.

to them that means you double checked before purposefully breaking a law.

good luck, let us know what happens when you get to it.

randing

I agree, keeping my mouth shut as much as possible has kept me out of even more trouble in quite a few situations.

LoRoK

I just got laughed out of court last week from some lady-cop with a serious attitude (don't you hate those) who pulled me over for "running a red light." It was clearly yellow, and she knew it and knew that I knew it because I told her. She pulled me over just because she wanted to (I didn't break any law). So instead she wrote me a ticket for riding on the right through a yellow light. I show up at court and the clerk looks at it and starts chuckling and calls the other clerks over to look at it. I was irritated being there that early in the morning for bull****, and had to walk a mile through a pretty serious rain. I was really lucky to not make a stink about how the lady-cop needed to be held accountable for her actions, as it was apparent that she pulled me over purely for no reason other than power tripping. Instead I just tucked my tail between my legs and walked out when they told me I could go. They were literally laughing as I walked out the door. ****ers.

AEO

you were taught a lesson for running the stop sign, now you have to prove you can learn from your mistake.

btw, I look in all directions, including behind, before rolling a stop sign so I don't have to deal with sneaky police.

PoN

There is a law in Idaho that treats stop as yield for bicycles... may want to see if you can use their arguments to get off or more consideration at least.

https://www.legislature.idaho.gov/ids...SECT49-720.htm

https://www.bicyclelaw.com/blog/index...nred-light-law
https://www.bicyclelaw.com/articles/a...-stop-as-yield
https://www.bta4bikes.org/btablog/200...daho-stop-law/
https://www.velonews.com/article/86786
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=stop+as+yield

PluperfectArson

They tried to pass the Idaho Stop Law here in Oregon, but they deemed it a joke for the most part, shuffled it in with other laws trying to be passed which did not really pertain to anything relevant.

AEO

wouldn't fly if you couldn't spot the cop around the corner.
it means either
a: blind corner
b: didn't look left or right.

Slingithajime

Im just going to man up, admit what I did was wrong and hope for the best on this one.

Even though it seems excessive to be hit with a $250 fine for crusing on a bike, I doubt Im going to get any sympathy if I play that card. To the city a bike is no different than a car.

Wish me luck tomorrow, folks.