Originally Posted by genec
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I also find it interesting the issues that another poster brought up... reguarding the "crackdown." If 95% of the users of the road are motorists... shouldn't at least half the tickets go to motorist violators? Are the cops being fair in their enforcement of the laws?
If you look at the breakdown of tickets, the numbers of tickets given to cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers were fairly even. The police have a tough job. If they only pick on one transportation mode, they get accused of bias. If the tickets are given based on mode split, they are accused of ticketing in accordance with a quota instead of ticketing in accordance to what they see.
Frankly, the limus test for me is whether they were ticketing all three modes. They were. The numbers are less important, since they shouldn't be keeping track of them at all. I'd much rather see cops giving tickets in accordance to what they see than keeping a tally sheet. It's not like this was critical mass and the cops showed up and gave everyone a ticket for trumped up violations.... This was commuter traffic and tickets were given individually. If there is any bias, it is intrinsic with the individual cops. That would tell us that the PPB needs some education on this matter. That they ticketed all modes means they were at least sensitive to looking like they were cracking down on cyclists.
If the cops aren't being fair, that's to be determined after the tickets are given. If it is found that there is a bias (numbers aren't good evidence; if 1% of cars violate laws and 30% of cyclists do, then the numbers won't match the mode split), then action can be taken by advocacy groups. If the tickets are for real violations, we need to focus on cyclist education, on rewriting bad laws, and fixing bad infrastructure. But to apply force, there must be something to push against.