Where in the city did this happen, Dave?

In the Presidio last week, U.S. Park Service police were ticketing cyclists who failed to come to a complete stop at a four-way intersection.

It worked like this: One officer had his car parked alongside the side of a building near the intersection. If he observed a cyclist not coming to a complete stop at the intersection, he radioed that info to two other officers further down the hill. Those officers would then stop the cyclist and issue a ticket.

Yes, I was one of those who got a ticket.

The intersection is on a downhill grade, and there were no cars there waiting, so I basically slowed to what I would describe as a "functional stop" -- I didn't unclip and put my foot down, but I braked to a point where my forward progress was negligible for at least a couple of seconds.

When the officers down the hill waved me over and told me I had run a stop sign, I thought maybe there was a new sign closer to where they were I had completely missed. No, they meant the one further up the hill.

I knew that I hadn't put a foot down, but I decided to ride back to the first officer and ask why he gave me a ticket. Basically, he said there was only one kind of stop -- a complete stop -- and that I had not come to a complete stop.

As we were talking, another cyclist -- a woman with panniers on a hybrid -- rolls very slowly through the stop sign. I watch the officer call her in. I then asked him if they were ticketing cars too. He said they were ticketing all vehicles that didn't come to a complete stop.

About 30 seconds after that, a car rolls through the intersection without coming to a complete stop. "Are you going to ticket that car?" I asked.

"I didn't see it," the officer replied.

I replied, "OK, well, I'm just going to hang out here a bit and watch the intersection with you."

The officer didn't reply. Then he made a call on his radio, said something I didn't catch, and drove away.

I was just doing loops through the Presidio that day, so at that point I continued my ride. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I was back at the spot where the first officer had been, and now there was a new officer there. Actually, it's one of the ones from further down the hill.

I started watching the intersection again. Sure enough, a car rolls through the stop sign.

"Are you going to ticket that car?" I ask.

The new officer says, "I didn't see it. I was talking on my radio."

Another minute passes. Another car rolls through the intersection. (There is a lot more car traffic than bike traffic there. Most of the cars came to a complete stop, but cars that didn't were hardly rare. In ten minutes or so of watching, I observed at least four that rolled through pretty blatantly.)

"What about that one?" I asked.

The second cop fired up his engine and drove away.

I am frustrated by what appeared to be the selective enforcement in effect, and am interested if anyone else has had similar experiences, especially if they occured in the Presidio...