Nice ride to the station this morning. Nice restful ride on the train. Then I rode CitiBike down to Greenwich Village to meet a friend for breakfast. Then I rode back to my office.

Wham! Hammering the CitiBike along at top speed, I'd guess around 18 - 20 mph, I ran the last seconds of a yellow light (an "orange" light, ) and a traffic policeman stepped out in front of me in that classic "stop right there" pose, and his colleague asked me for my ID.

The cops were very nice. Fifty bucks! That's a discount; he charged me with "improper use of bicycle" rather than "red light" which costs $190. Well, no use pretending I'm innocent. On the other hand, if I added up all the traffic lights I've run since I started riding a bike in NYC, that probably adds up to about $0.10 for every time I've gotten away with it, or maybe $2 for every time I've done it with cops watching. Nonetheless, I was sincere when I told the officer I will try to obey traffic lights in the future. I thanked the officers and told them to keep doing what they're doing.