I would second the suggestion of contesting the ticket via the mail. If the officer doesn't respond, you're off the hook. If he does, you're on the same hook that you were originally on, so what do you have to lose? I would also say that, joking aside, giving a cop a name other than your own is a bad idea.

Since this has morphed into a red light discussion, I figure one good rant deserves another. You treated the red light as a yield sign. So what? Traffic lights are instruments implemented when an intersection becomes too congested for cagers to navigate without injuring one another or excessively slowing down traffic. If you treat the light as a yield sign and know how to operate your vehicle, you aren't endangering anyone and you are actually speeding up the flow of traffic. Some of us only drive bikes. We can't simply torch up some fossil fuel by slightly moving our foot everytime we want to take off from a complete stop, so we try to keep the wheels moving when it's safe to do so. Traffic laws are tailored for automobile-crowded roads because people didn't have the wisdom to foresee that the widespread use of the automobile would have deleterious social, environmental, civic, etc--effects. If the Man catches you breakin' the rules he can give you a ticket and you gotta live with it. Fine, but all this moralizing about how we have to act behave just like other vehicles get my goat, because by "vehicles" these people mean "petroleum powered passenger vehicles". I don't accept that definition, and I believe that there is a long and venerable tradition in this country that one can at the same time have respect for the Law without slavishly obeying every legislative stupidity that comes down the pipe. If a cop ever gives me a ticket, I won't give him any guff, he's doing his job to enforce the normalized standards of the age (and thank God that there are people doing that job). But many of us don't buy into those standards and instead believe that if you aren't hauling some freight or quite a few passengers around, your convenience doesn't justify climbing into a 2-ton, petrol-burning hunk of metal to ferry yo' lazy as$ around town. We get around by our own power, and we keep the wheels moving when it's safe--not when a light emitting photons in a particular visible spectrum tells us to. The overwhelming porportion of traffic laws exist to mitigate the safety problems related to our national addiction to the automobile. Don't ever do anything on your bike to endanger others by making a car slam on the brakes or swerve. Respect the safety aspect of the laws as they relate to everyone on road and walkways. While respecting these legitimate contraints for the safety of all, I for one will proudly continue to have nothing but contempt for the parts of the law which are ordered so that we can proceed with our American drive-through oblivion as conveniently as possible. Car centered life is stupidity and short-sightedness on a grand scale. Because of its grand scale I have to accept with humility that I may not be able to do much about it in a larger sense; but personally, I'll be damned if I'm going to meekly play along. Run your lights is it's safe and clear, brother.

And take care of that ticket.