Entertainment-wise, this is the thread that just keeps on giving, LOL.

Pay it. Move on.

Is this always how a bike is caught--by police in car? Since bikes don't have license, it can't be caught by camera, correct?

Is it OK if I walk the bike across a red light?

No, a camera couldn't catch you. If you walk against a light, are you not jay-walking? Still could get you a ticket, if a cop sees you.

Less fine, I suppose?

What are they going to do, boot your bike? Throw the ticket in the garbage.

Bad idea. You don't think that an unpaid ticket doesn't end up on your record? Depending on the locality they may refuse to renew your license, find you in contempt of court and issue a warrant, etc.

A buddy of mine was arrested after he was stopped for a minor traffic violation because there were several unpaid PARKING tickets associated with the car. Parking tickets his wife received and didn't pay.

It depends on the jurisdiction. When you show up to court you typically enter your plea with the court clerk. You can plead guilty with explanation (at least in MD and Portland you can) which gives you the opportunity to plead your case to the judge. Here in Portland, the clerk looks up your record and will offer you a reduced fine if you plea guilty & it's your first offense. If you plead innocent and the cop is there then you will absolutely lose unless you've got evidence to the contrary (traffic cam picture, etc.).

NYS doesn't generally arrest people people for failing to respond to traffic tickets. They do suspend licenses, and make you pay an additional fine (in addition to whatever you were cited for) to get the license reinstated.

No, it means the law is wrong. Are you suggesting that all laws are always right and just?

You're too smart to not see the difference between the "Idaho stop" and some idiot flying through a light so why are you perpetuating this silliness? "Blow" a red light and you're an idiot playing Russian Roulette. Run a red light intelligently? Different story.

I like the post somewhere above about not seeing a cop means not being situationally aware enough to run a light. That was well put.

There's a red light in front of a police precinct HQ in Harlem that is routinely run by nearly every cyclist who goes through this intersection and nobody is ever ticketed. The cops are no fools, they know that it's often more practical and safer, yes safer for cyclists to run red lights.

I would have agreed with this in the past. However, with the new approach to electronic tracking, along with the new philosophy that says, "good people do not make mistakes, any illegal acts are evidence of bad character," make any admission of guilt in to a, potential, life long mistake. As has been mentioned, potential employers want driving records, as proof of character. When I was a CPS investigator, driving records were used in court as evidence of character.

Further, such an admission will have the potential may raise your insurance rates, so the cost is not just the $270, you may pay that in increased auto insurance just in the first year. The fact that th eincident was on a bicycle is, often, not considered relevant; after all, it is evidence of character. As has been already mentioned, it will weigh against you in future traffic court, and other courts.

Tell the truth, pay the price, and move on was good advise once; but no longer. The new approach to electronic tracking and linking information, along with the assumption that any error is evidence of ill character, make any fight a fight worth fighting.

Yes, going this far for a red light is madness. However, a system that allows a red light violation to haunt you for years is its own kind of madness.

Quite a few here like to pretend that bicycles are automobiles.

The OP should fight the ticket. This might lead to a reduced fine, which is about the best you can hope for in the immediate term. However, the reason Idaho stops became legal in Idaho has little to do with cyclists trying to change a law, and much to do with judges who got tired of seeing their already overcrowded court rooms wasting time on such petty infractions. Doing your part to clog the courts and raising the cost associated with enforcing such a ridiculous law may eventually lead to either the law being changed, or at least still less enforcement.

But those people never put their money where their mouth is, and carry liability insurance for their bikes. Even though the "same roads same law" law requires this of cars, and even though people on bikes have (very rarely) killed and injured pedestrians in the past.

Many people here are making the assumption that the OP ran the light safely, which might have been the case. Conversely, the cop may have been fully justified in giving the OP a ticket; perhaps the OP was weaving through a sea of pedestrians who had the right of way (I don't ride in NY, but I've seen a lot of videos of NY cyclists doing just this). If the latter is true, then even under Idaho's Stop-as-Yield law, the OP would've been ticketed. None of us know, except maybe the OP, and possibly not even the OP as the cop might have seen something that the OP didn't.

This is a good point, but not every instance of red light enforcement is ridiculous. Like I said, I don't ride in NY; but people who do generally agree that the police rarely enforce red lights for cyclists. This might indicate that the OP did something so egregious that the cop felt it necessary to ticket the OP, despite contrary convention. Or, the cop might've just been a power-tripping jerk, and didn't like the look of the OP's face. If the police in NY are repeatedly ticketing cyclists who safely run reds (stop, establish that the intersection is clear of all cross traffic, including pedestrians, then procede), then this certainly calls for a change in the law. However, if the cops mainly enforce red lights for cyclists only when those cyclists are riding without regard to the right of way of others, riding like a bunch of traffic bullies, then the law is fine as it is.

So, OP, if you feel that what you did was right, and that your ticket was received unjustly, then by all means fight it. I said earlier that you have a responsibility to use your right to challenge wisely. This includes challenging injustice as well as not avoiding justice. If you're being held accountable for an action that is both safe, courteous, and common; then stand up and do what you can to make the legal system realize this. But, if you're being held accountable for an action that is reckless, disregards the rights of others, and common; then admit that you are part of the traffic problem. And you are part of the traffic problem, then the law has the responsibility to hold you accountable, as much as you have a responsibility to own up.

And don't listen to those who tell you that this one ticket is somehow going to haunt you for the rest of your life. It'll be on your record for a few years, and then it will become of no account. Take it from someone who stacked up a lot of speeding and various moving violation tickets. My record is now clean. The last two cops who pulled me over (expired registration [whoops!] and no taillights after dark [blown fuse, and frankly that cop might've saved my life]) didn't ticket me, just directed me to fix the problem. Ten years ago I was paying $240 a month for insurance one car, now I pay $115 for two. If you show that you've learned your lesson, there is feedback set up in the system to recognize that.

All that I'm suggesting is that the OP be honest. Sure, the truthful path is often the difficult path, but it will make a better person of you. What gain is a decreased fine if it comes with establishing a behavioral pattern of lying, and of weaseling out of your responsibilities and the consequences of your action? Would you balance a lower insurance rate against the ability to recognizing when you are in the wrong, and, consequently, to know how to set yourself right?

If it's safer for a cyclist to run a red light in order to avoid more of the vehicles that would be passing him otherwise, then that cyclist is riding too far right. In running that red light, you're basically using a band-aid solution to a gaping wound. You're not solving the real problem, and your chosen 'solution' could kill you just as easily as not trying to solve it at all.

Here in IL they won't renew your license if you have unpaid fines. But warrents, arrests? No.

That's why I quit driving. The whole system is bs and designed to take your money.

This American Life had an interesting story last week about NYC cops having specific quotas for writing up tickets. Maybe the cop who wrote up the OP needed to fill his quota and the OP just happened to be on the unlucky side of that transaction.

I commute in Manhattan and may be somewhat more sympathetic than others here.

Fact is, to stay alive, you can't be looking at lights, you have to look at cars and people. So I run a lot of lights whather I want to or not simply because in looking around for them, I'm taking my eyes off where they need to be. Still, I agree with the thoughts we want to be good citizens and obey the laws. Cyclists have an anarchistic reputation and it contributes to the number of arrests by cops that want to housebreak us.

Hard to say how to play this. I've been popped twice, once at a "Critical Mass" demonstration and once for lifting my bike up to throw it though a Taxi windshield (he'd knocked me down in a game they sometimes play). Both times I went to court. The "Aggression" charge or whatever, I got 6 months Probation. The Advocate and the Judge just arranged it. Stay cool for 6 months and it's expunged. Get popped again and you get tried for it. The other one simply got dismissed. Officer said "I can't find my notes".

You ride a bike in NYC and it's a different world. Kind of like combat in the Army. Talk about it and people flame your sorry ass. It's a parallel universe and the civilized rules of normal society will get you killed. Outsiders simply don't understand it so you'll learn to keep your mouth shut about it.

My BS meter just went off the scale. I commute from Queens over WillyB, then 1st Ave up to 34th Street, often run errands around Midtown, and I can stop at lights just fine. It's not that hard. No excuses.

Adam

Yes, that's true. You're more likely to get a ticket at the end of the month

+1 NYCjohn170

The light sensors are wires buried in the pavement, which basically 'see' the metallic mass of a cars magnetic field. Get a couple of the really strong rare-earth / neodymium magnets and attach them to the bottom of the bike frame.. The same trick works on motorcycles, many of which also don't trip the sensors. ;-)

what pisses me off is the cops trying to use "safety" as a justification for what is, in all honesty revenueing.

i don't have a problem with pulling over and fining a cyclist for bombing through a red light, but treating a cyclists who cautiously rolls through to avoid unclipping or more importantly, being mowed down from behind by an inattentive cager, is BS.

This same thing happens in my sleepy little town. The local cops sit in wait near very quiet stop signs with good sight lines. They know these stop signs will be rolled through by motorists frequently, so it is easy pickings. They can pay their salary for the day in a half hour. I haven't been the victim of one of these stings on my bike...yet.

if they're properly set up, they should trip from a bike rim. Not a bike. Not even a whole wheel. Just the hoop. Complain to the people responsible for the light.