areyouolsen

Get a load of this one...

https://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/..._but_1500.html

dinkjs

Good for NYC...I agree with them over the cyclist

Seattle Forrest

New York City isn't polluted enough, and has to resort to desperate measures to discourage the bicycle. I mean, Tripoli is falling, and we'll have as much as 2 % more oil in the global markets ... but freaks like this guy are refusing to burn it into the air. What is this world coming to?

Booger1

So what's the problem......man likes running red lights and gets tickets for it....so!

mulveyr 

Heck yes. Cyclists should be treated exactly like motorists. Predictability is one of the key factors in being safe on the road. Blowing through stop signs and lights throws that out the window.

lostarchitect 

There is a difference between blowing through a light, and slowing down, making sure it is clear, and then going through. Ticketing a cyclist for the former is a good thing, ticketing for the latter is ridiculous in a city where everybody--EVERYBODY--jaywalks and nobody ever gets a ticket for it.

Now, I don't know what this guy did, so I can't take a side for or against him. But I--carefully--go through red lights and I am not sorry for it, and it is not dangerous. I also jaywalk. Carefully.

8Fishes

Knew this looked familiar.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ning-red-light


I bet this was just pretty much at the wrong place at the wrong time.
It could have been anyone but he is getting 'singled' out for these tickets, as I am sure other cyclists can be too. Cops can't ticket everyone, and can only do it one at a time. Like I said in the other thread, it's a great double standard some cyclists have. If you wanted to be treated like motorists, here's a great shot because those are the same tickets anyone driving a car would get if they ran lights. There is no difference in the example, unless you wish to lobby to get NY traffic code change. It's really simple; Is light red? If yes, don't go or risk ticket.

Suggesting otherwise is also suggesting to allow cars to also do the same. Slowing down, making sure it's clear and then going through. I'm sure some do, just as cyclists do but I don't risk it because it's dangerous, and makes motorists hate us for not waiting with them.

MK313

I agree with the city on this one as well. Cyclists want to be treated like vehicles, then we must respect the rules like other vehicles. Also, this guy got three tickets for blowing red lights. It wasn't like it just happened one time.

nashcommguy

Yeah, this guy was trying to reason at the party w/t Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Stopping at traffic lights is something I always did instinctively right from the beginning. Now that I commute on a fg it gives me an opportunity to show off my mad track standing skillz.

lostarchitect 

Double standard? No, I just do what's safer for me, in every circumstance. The law is not relevant to my decisions. I don't go the wrong way down streets, because I think it's unsafe. I don't ride on the sidewalk for the same reason. I wear a helmet because I believe it is safer. I always wait at the light at wide streets with 2 way traffic, because I think that's the safer thing. I believe it's safer for me to go though a clear light on a small street than to wait there next to cars who don't care that I'm 12 inches away from them. I don't care if it's illegal. If I get a ticket, so be it, there's no arguing that it's not against the law. I believe that it's safer, and I'll gladly trade the occasional ticket for that safety (not that I have ever gotten one).

Note that this applies to where I live, I don't know what conditions are like where you are. If it was safer there, I'd stop at every light.

thenomad

Blatant and careless running of red lights (a-la the glorified NYC messenger) is not ok. The current push to slap lots of tickets aimed at cyclists on the other hand is rediculous.

Having spent good bit of time in NYC traffic I think the cops are fed up and throwing in the towel at enforcing the laws on 3-5000 lb steel cage speeding and changing lanes recklessly. They've decided to direct their efforts towards the easier prey, the squishy fragile cyclist moving between the cages.
The reason is that recently the drivers have become annoyed with the "inconvenience" of the small unprotected people that make them wait an extra second in the name of "safety".

Cyclists dont deserve "safety" nor protection from the drivers or the cops.

Eclectus

Running red lights, obey the law, or accept the consequences of not obeying.

First, if you are going to blow red lights and stop signs, LOOK AHEAD, BEHIND, and BOTH SIDES.

LOOK FOR COPS. If you blow thru, and there is a cop there and you get pulled over and cited, your bad (mistake, error).

People who get ticketed for blowing red lights aren't looking around enough.

There's nothing wrong with stopping until the lights change. Or in some states with "dead red" signal laws, (sensors that don't detect bicycles) stopping on red lights, then proceeding if you aren't impeding cross-traffic drivers.

On rolling thru, with no or minimal slow-down, you takes your chances. Bad decision-makers get eliminated from the gene pool. I do not believe cyclists should, bereaking the law, force motorists to majorly brake. Has this happened to me? Yeah, sometimes, but it made me feel bad. I've had many more times when I had a stop sign, and drivers without a stop sign give me, "You go," WTF is that?! Really nice courtesy.

When you are cycling, you have to figure a lot of things out. Like, if you ride roads/streets a lot, a Dinotte tailight is really good for making drivers change lanes waay behind you, on 4-lanes, or even on 2-lanes giving them time and distance to cooly calculate how and when to pass you.

Cheshire

Cyclists like this guy are one of the PRIME reasons drivers down here are so hateful towards bicycles. I'm with the city on this one, sorry. If you want to use the roads with the cars, you have to follow the same traffic laws. If you want to thumb your nose at "laws", then look at it as a PATTERN. When you disrupt a normally predictable traffic pattern by filtering, going through red lights, you lead drivers to think they don't have to be prepared to give a cyclist like me, who STOPS at lights and DOESN'T filter, the space I occupy between them and the car in front of me. If they're expecting me to filter because all the jackwagons have gotten them used to it...all those jackwagons are part of the reason my risk of getting rear-ended (or having crap thrown at my head out of passenger windows) is so bloody high.

I'm tired of stopping at a light just to have another cyclist blow past me and through the red light. Guess who gets all the hateful looks? Guess who's wheel the SUV creeps up on as a reaction to your blowing a red light? MINE. Because "all you cyclists look the same".

somedood

The ticket was intended for the mustache. Who wouldn't give a $1500 fine for that thing?

Aushiker

+ 1. If you break the law ... expect to be punished. If this was a motorist would he be outraged? Some how I doubt it.

Andrew

MijnWraak

rhm

It is really hard to ride in NYC without running red lights. In many ways I feel safer doing that, than waiting among the other vehicles. And the police know this; I've had traffic cops wave me through red lights that they weren't waving cars through (why? I dunno!) and I've followed NYPD bike cops through red lights (they run them too). I have yet to buy a ticket, but I've only been doing this six years or so, so I suppose it's just a matter of time.

The existing traffic laws seem poorly suited to the reality of bicycling in the city, and (perhaps as a result of this?) police generally turn a blind eye to all cyclist infractions. This, I think, is unfortunate. They should decide what is and what is not acceptable, and crack down on the cyclists who cross the line.

dcrowell

If you've been running lights (carefully) for six years and haven't been ticketed, I'm guessing this guy was much worse about it to get three tickets.

I will sometimes run a red (not normally though), and if I get a ticket, it'll stop that behavior. I won't come crying to the internet when I've racked up three of 'em.

harshbarj

On one hand I disagree with this cyclist. We all should stop at a red light and wait for it to turn. On the other hand I do agree the fine is excessive. In many countries fines on cyclists are much lower than for motor vehicles.

Seattle Forrest

How much liability insurance are you required to carry when you "drive" your bike?

BrooklyntoNYC

I stop at about 85% to 90% of red lights. I too am tired of riders blowing thru red lights here in bklyn like crazy. I see riders on sidewalks as well just cruising, there should be a ticket blitz. At $190 per pop, you will change your ways.

electrik

Handing out tickets for a cyclist jumping a red in NYC is like handing out speeding tickets at the indy 500.

8Fishes

Should be a good boom in the city revenue then.

kevin_stevens

*THE* fine?!? It's not like they hit him with $1,500 off the bat. An education is expensive, especially for slow learners.

KeS

kevin_stevens

+several

All the people who claim "the cagers hate us anyway, whether we obey the rules or not" are just wrong - about me, anyway. As a motorist, I hate cyclists for exactly one reason: because I *can't* predict what they are going to do, and I have to focus all my attention on them until they're not in my vicinity - thereby putting me at risk because I can't pay attention to all the other drivers who are trying to kill me at the same time. I feel the same way about children and loose dogs.

I didn't post it at the time, but just a couple of days ago there was a *perfect* example of this. I'm getting ready to turn right out of a shopping mall when a bicyclist pops out from the other side of the intersection, riding in the pedestrian crosswalk. He startled me because I was looking for oncoming traffic in, well, the traffic lanes. I'd already checked for actual pedestrians and there weren't any. But hey, at least he was crossing with the pedestrian light!

So I figured he was going to get on the sidewalk. Nope - NOW he's a car! He turns left out of the crosswalk into the curbside traffic lane, right where I was going to go. Well, no problem there since I'm still stopped waiting for him to finish crossing the street (which he never did). So I pull out in my right turn after him, pick the next lane over, and notice that now he's in the bike lane. Ok... why didn't he stay in the traffic lane? Or why didn't he pull into the bike lane initially? Who knows.

But we're now coming up on the next light, no more than 50 yards from where we started. We have a red, and the oncoming traffic has a green and left turn green. A car is coming up in the left turn lane. Oh, this is why he moved into the bike lane, I guess. He blows straight through the red, causing the oncoming car to abruptly slam on their brakes just before starting their turn. *THEN* he becomes a vehicle again, swerves across three lanes, which are of course now empty since he has brought traffic to a dead stop, and perches nonchalantly between the two left-turn lanes going in his direction.

That's at least three major violations in 50 yards of riding, and he was totally oblivious to all of the disruption he caused. I felt nothing but a steady seething rage at how entitled and disregarding his actions were.

And I was on a bike myself.

KeS