invisiblehand

I'm surprised by the response. Would you have fought the ticket?

genec

Proudly!

Bekologist

i'm curious how much it cost...

I-Like-To-Bike

One possibility, if LEO's actually gather around to discuss traffic tickets that got dismissed, might be a specific effort to write tickets that will be sure to stick; especially if there is a feeling that the person ( a perceived wiseass) beat a previous ticket and was bragging that he stuck it to the "Man". That was not Joe's reaction on the this thread but some of his cheerleaders certainly could cause such a reaction.

grayloon

Fought a ticket with an attorney two years ago, the cost was $75 for the attorney, but it was on first hearing and there were no court costs. We won and it helped my insurance rate. With an appeal, the cost would have probably tripled for the attorney, at least as I remember the fee schedule.

invisiblehand

I think that there is some effort given to avoid writing tickets that "don't stick". And yes, LEOs are people too; but my experience is that most simply want to do a good job.

joejack951

ILTB, you've offered plenty of sound advice in this thread, even if I didn't always take it. Bek, take notes.

As invisiblehand noted, the ticket was given to me on a road that I travel daily for my commute, though the intersection where I was ticketted is not one I usually go through (not that it's any different than the intersections I do use daily). The main "good" that I saw coming out of fighting this ticket was having a quick and easy way of ending the inevitable next discussion with the police about riding in the travel lanes on this road. As I noted earlier in this thread, I had previous discussions with police on this road about the same thing though they did not ticket me for anything.

As to my out of pocket costs, I don't have an exact cost at this point. To date, my costs have been $0. Lost wages: I'm salary. Lawyer fees: A local lawyer has defended cyclists in similar cases and while he was not available for my court date, he had another lawyer in his firm do him/me a favor and handle the case at no cost to me. Court costs: Because I did not have a trial, I'm not sure if the courts will cash my checks that I wrote for the appeal. I wrote them almost 8 months ago and they haven't been cashed yet. I'll be watching my bank account to see if they hit in the next few weeks. Assuming they do, I'm out about $135.

Back to the "good", I do plan on discussing the matter with the state police and DE Bicycle Council once all of the paperwork is finalized. As Steve Goodridge noted a while back in this thread, road designs such as this one don't do cyclists any favors. They tend to promote higher speeds and motorists (even the lawyer who took my case) view the road as more of a freeway than a surface street. Ideally (though this is likely a pipe dream) the road could be configured to be more cyclist friendly by allowing cyclists to use the width available on this road without unintentionally breaking the law (going straight from a right turn only lane). I'd also like to address the fact that Delaware has no laws allowing cyclists to legally travel on the shoulder yet the bike council and the police both promote/suggest that it is the only place for cyclists to be. I'm personally not comfortable with the possible legal conflicts that result from that contradiction.

And thanks to everyone else who offered support/advice/humourous comments during this thread. It was certainly worth my while, for many different reasons, to post about this incident here.

joejack951

Of all the things I could have potentially been cited for, the AFRAP law seems to be the most difficult one to fight. Other options:

impeding traffic: only applicable to motor vehicles in DE
under minimum speed: no posted minimum speed limit
slow moving vehicle to turn off roadway: only applicable on one lane each way roadway
unsafe speed: only applies to going too fast
reckless driving: I was in my lane, going straight, under the speed limit, and using lights and reflectors after dawn

I list the above because these have all been brought up during discussions with LEO's. The only one I was never able to convince any of them about was the AFRAP law. Who knows though. Maybe they'll dig up some obscure law and I'll get stuck with the same judge again.

joejack951

I ride from the edge of DE into PA for work. Since the ticket, I have had one more discussion in Delaware right after my ticket (officer actually pulled into the right turn lane as I was slowing for a light to tell me I was impeding traffic) and two in PA (on a different road). On Naamans Road, I recently was making the left turn into my neighborhood and negotiated my way across to the left turn lane from the right lane with a county cop behind me. Didn't hear anything from him.