Hello fellow bikers.
I had a most interesting experience tonight. I was commuting home from work. It is approximately 3.6 miles from work to home. I was about a mile into my commute home at 9:30PM riding in the right half of the right hand land of a 5 lane road. I usually average about 15 mph on my commutes. Speedlimit in this area is 40mph I believe. I have reflectors on both front and back of my bike, I have a cateye headlight on and a blinking tail light. I am wearing a helment. I hear this PA come on behind me saying, "get off the road, that's what sidewalks are for." Well my first reaction is that this must be some kid who has a PA hooked up in their car. Well I look back over my shoulder and notice it is a police car. Well at this point I'm thinking what the hell? I go ahead and pull over to the sidewalk and stop thinking he is going to stop too so I can ask him what the hell. Well he takes off and goes on. Well I have read these boards enough to know that the sidewalk is not the safest place to be. I also know the laws here in arksnas enough to know that I have a right to the road. Well I go ahead and pull back out into the road and try to catch up to the officer to ask him what the hell he is talking about. Well at this point he has gotten so far ahead I can't see him. About a mile farther down the road I see the blue lights behind me. I go ahead and pull over into the parking lot of a restaurant. He get's out of his car and I can tell right away he has a serious attitude. Hell he was just a kid. I wouldn't be suprised if he wasn't young enough to be my son. Well he certainly didn't show me any respect. He get's out of his car and tells me "I warned you once to get out of the road, now I should just throw you in the car and haul you down to jail." I'm like whoa, what is this guys problem. Anyway, I maintain my cool, and in a very sensible way try to explain to him that my understanding was that a bicycle had as much right to the road as any other vehicle. He proceeded to tell me that this was absolutely not the case, and if you were going to be on a bike you had to either be on the sidewalk, or over in the grass if there wasn't a sidewalk. I tried to tell him that my understanding of the law was that you had to have a reflector front and back and a headlight on the front. And ride on the right side of the road. He tells me I am wrong. I ask him if he could provide me with the particular law that backs him up. He tells me he doesn't have to do that and out there on the road he IS the law. I ask him if there is any one to appeal HIS decisions to he says NO. At this point he says he is just going to let me go with a warning. I guess I should have just let it go at that. Well I wanted to know what his name was so I asked him very nicely what his name was. Well this was apparantly the wrong thing to do. He's like "That's IT!" He get's his little cell phone out and calls up the station and starts asking them what he can cite me for. Well after talking to one person and not coming up with anything, she passes him to someone else and they finally come up with "Failure to obey a Police officer." Which just reinforces what I said all along, there was no law which said I couldn't ride in the road
I'm sorry for my monoparagraph there but I am still somewhat upset about this whole thing. I never did smart off to him. I maintained my cool the whole time. The road was 2 lanes each direction with a turning lane in the middle typical of a business district.
So is it true that the cops make up the laws while they are on the road??
Should I fight the ticket?
Thanks in advance for your advice
Dan
I had a most interesting experience tonight. I was commuting home from work. It is approximately 3.6 miles from work to home. I was about a mile into my commute home at 9:30PM riding in the right half of the right hand land of a 5 lane road. I usually average about 15 mph on my commutes. Speedlimit in this area is 40mph I believe. I have reflectors on both front and back of my bike, I have a cateye headlight on and a blinking tail light. I am wearing a helment. I hear this PA come on behind me saying, "get off the road, that's what sidewalks are for." Well my first reaction is that this must be some kid who has a PA hooked up in their car. Well I look back over my shoulder and notice it is a police car. Well at this point I'm thinking what the hell? I go ahead and pull over to the sidewalk and stop thinking he is going to stop too so I can ask him what the hell. Well he takes off and goes on. Well I have read these boards enough to know that the sidewalk is not the safest place to be. I also know the laws here in arksnas enough to know that I have a right to the road. Well I go ahead and pull back out into the road and try to catch up to the officer to ask him what the hell he is talking about. Well at this point he has gotten so far ahead I can't see him. About a mile farther down the road I see the blue lights behind me. I go ahead and pull over into the parking lot of a restaurant. He get's out of his car and I can tell right away he has a serious attitude. Hell he was just a kid. I wouldn't be suprised if he wasn't young enough to be my son. Well he certainly didn't show me any respect. He get's out of his car and tells me "I warned you once to get out of the road, now I should just throw you in the car and haul you down to jail." I'm like whoa, what is this guys problem. Anyway, I maintain my cool, and in a very sensible way try to explain to him that my understanding was that a bicycle had as much right to the road as any other vehicle. He proceeded to tell me that this was absolutely not the case, and if you were going to be on a bike you had to either be on the sidewalk, or over in the grass if there wasn't a sidewalk. I tried to tell him that my understanding of the law was that you had to have a reflector front and back and a headlight on the front. And ride on the right side of the road. He tells me I am wrong. I ask him if he could provide me with the particular law that backs him up. He tells me he doesn't have to do that and out there on the road he IS the law. I ask him if there is any one to appeal HIS decisions to he says NO. At this point he says he is just going to let me go with a warning. I guess I should have just let it go at that. Well I wanted to know what his name was so I asked him very nicely what his name was. Well this was apparantly the wrong thing to do. He's like "That's IT!" He get's his little cell phone out and calls up the station and starts asking them what he can cite me for. Well after talking to one person and not coming up with anything, she passes him to someone else and they finally come up with "Failure to obey a Police officer." Which just reinforces what I said all along, there was no law which said I couldn't ride in the road
I'm sorry for my monoparagraph there but I am still somewhat upset about this whole thing. I never did smart off to him. I maintained my cool the whole time. The road was 2 lanes each direction with a turning lane in the middle typical of a business district.
So is it true that the cops make up the laws while they are on the road??
Should I fight the ticket?
Thanks in advance for your advice
Dan