Fellow Bikers:

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for the great responses so far. I will be honest, this is not the only place I have posted my story. I have posted on several different discussion boards, newsgroups, ect. Of all the responses I have gotten probably in the low hundreds, all of the responses have been very positive, and insistent that I fight the ticket.

I did want to give a little more additional information on exactly the kind of town I am from. This incident happened in my hometown, the town I was born and raised in, Jonesboro, Arkansas, a small city with a population of over 50,000. I will be absolutely honest and say I have never had any problem whatsoever with the police force in this town. As you can see we are not talking about a major metropolitan area here, but it’s also not Mayberry.

The steps I have taken since this incident, in addition to posting to the forums. I have talked to the owner of my local bike shop. He was rather incensed at what had happened to me. He insisted on taking the ticket number, and all relevant information from the ticket, he said he had some contacts downtown and he was going to see what he could do about it. We will just have to see about that.

Also, I emailed the head of the local bike club, which I belong to. I have not heard back from him yet. I also emailed my cousin, who also belongs to the same bike club as me. My cousin also happens to be a lawyer here in town. Unfortunately he is a Probate lawyer, instead of a criminal or traffic lawyer. I haven’t heard back from him yet either.

I am pretty much resolved to fighting the ticket at this point. After all, what do I have to loose? At the worst I will end up having to pay the ticket, which as it stands right now I will have to pay anyway if I don’t fight it.

The first step I intend to actively take is to try to talk to the chief of Police here in Jonesboro. Hopefully he will be more understanding than his rookie officer. Like I said I have never had any other kind of problems with the local police officers here. I can’t help but believe this was a case of a single rookie cop trying to prove how big of a man he was. I really believe what really got him pissed off at me in the first place was that he had to drive along behind me for a few feet waiting on traffic to clear in the left lane before he could go around me.

If I didn’t say it in my original post, I guess I should make it clear now. He was intending to let me go with just a verbal warning, until I had the audacity and the balls to ask him for his name. That really was the straw that broke the camels back. That was when he said he was going to go ahead and give me a ticket. Actually this was after he had threatened to haul me into jail for disorderly conduct.

I sit here now thinking about what happened out there on the road, and it really pisses me off. Fortunately I didn’t have that much time to think about it at the time, and I certainly didn’t desire to be hauled off to jail, so I kept my cool.
The idea of threatening to sue the city does deserve some merit, and the idea of bringing in the ACLU brings a smile to my face also. If this issue is not resolved in a quick and expeditious manner, those two things are certainly options I will keep in mind.

Please keep the ideas coming.


Thanks again for your input.


Dan