Reducing stop sign violation bail in San Francisco?
After commuting for 2 years with no problem, I got two stop sign violation tickets in the last two weeks. Normally I'd pay the tickets, but in this case it's just too painful to pay two of them in two weeks.
The cops were quite nice and both of them highlighted the possibility of reduced fines if I schedule a trial date. Does anyone have any experience with reduced fines for cyclists in SF? I find conflicting stories, so something from first hand would be great.
On the side note, in the first case they caught me in a classic police trap that was set up for cyclists during commute hours. They even said that they were sent out to give tickets to cyclist with zero tolerance.
While I agree that everyone should respect traffic laws, I find it sad that SFPD targets cyclist commuters. In a city where there is no parking, public transportation sucks and traffic jams are all over the place they shouldn't specifically target cyclists. Also I'd love to see reduced fines for cyclists in the case of some minor violations (along with numerous infrastructure changes).