Originally Posted by
SClaraPokeman
nemeseri,
Can you describe what you were doing to be issued the citations? Did you slow at all? If you did a rolling stop $197 (are there additional court costs as with a motorized vehicle citation?) still seems very high to me. I know SF is a very different environment than say running a stop sign in the flatlands of Mtn. View, but how egregious was your offense?
The first time was a classic rolling stop. Slowed down, looked around carefully (that's why I didn't even notice the policeman standing 40 ft in front of me), advanced into intersection without stopping with no incoming traffic. It's not a super busy intersection (17th & Capp St). I was really sad because I thought the officer would give me a warning. That was the point when he said that their boss sent them out to ticket bicycle riders with zero tolerance.
The second was with a little bit more speed, but still not dangerous or outrageous (slowed down, looked around, but from outside it might have looked I wasn't carefully enough). Because it wasn't a bicycle specific trap I feel like it was perfectly alright from the policeman to give a ticket in that situation.