Sometimes it's like riding against the traffic

When you ride your bike around New York City, you get frustrated by the number of cars parked in the bike lanes, forcing you to ride out into the traffic. It's particularly frustrating when the car happens to be driven by a law enforcement officer.

Today, I rode home from giving a talk up at Fordham University and there was a police car parked in the middle of the bike lane, right next to a row of empty parking spaces.

Maybe I've taken too much to heart my idea that biking is a form of assertiveness training. I turned my bike around and rode up to the officer. I said, but very politely,  "Officer, if you guys park in the bike lanes, what chance do we have with everyone else?"

He said, "How about I write you a summons for riding the wrong way?"

I was merely trying to point out that if the police don't respect the very few rules that offer protection to vulnerable bicyclists, no one else will.

I guess he didn't get my point. And I'm betting he doesn't read the blog, either.

PS You can read other No Impact Man posts about biking here, here and here.

Image of another police car in a bike lane courtesy of Brownstoner.

Comments

[joohliah]

Hey there ! I'm french and I live in Paris, and I mostly move around by bike. Although the current mayor is trying hard to help bicycles and built a lot of bike paths since he's been in charge, we DO have A LOT of cars parked on them.

Especially police cars.That drives me mad too, I nearly got hit by a cab once, trying not to run into the police car parked in front of me, but they just don't care. They also let motorbikes ride in the bike paths, and it doesn't seem to bother them a tiny bit.

Anyway, you were right and brave talking to them about it, I never did, but I think I will next time thanks to you :)

Great project by the way, and thanks for sharing :)

[Nix Smith]

You should consider complaining next time. Take down the car number and the license plate number and call it in to the non-emergency number. I'd be willing to bet they suspect this happens, but there's no way to be sure unless people complain! I would add in that he threatened you with a baseless citation, that can't be encouraged...

[Jen from Brooklyn]

Personally, I'd be thrilled if they wrote citations for riding the wrong way! Cyclists riding the wrong way, ESPECIALLY in bike lanes, is as dangerous to me as cars parked in them! Cyclists, motorists, pedestrians don't know the rules - and when people are unclear like that, they do what is convenient for themselves. A big education blitz, followed by a big enforcement blitz, would be fantastic for bike safety in NYC.

Also, forcing cops who abuse their power to clean toilets with their tongues would be fantastic for everyone's safety....

[Rick]

I agree with Nix Smith.

If after you've called out an officer of the people to be accountable for their unlawful actions and they threaten you with an abuse of power, the next step to holding them accountable for their actions is taking the issue to the head (not that Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly is fond of bicycling).

Too often, I hear stories of the police in NYC forgetting who they're working for and why.

[DM]

Living and working downtown near the courts there is a huge problem with this. Police are always parking in bike lanes. There is also a problem with construction vehicles parking in bike lanes as well. It would be nice if they coned off part of the street to a makeshift bike lane when they do this but there is little effort to do so. Maybe transportation alternatives could put together a photo submission page where we could take pictures of bike lanes being blocked and at some point submit them to the DOT.

[Xta]

Sorry, dude, I gotta side with the cop on this one - turning around and riding the wrong way to go talk to him was a dumb thing to do. If it's that important to talk to him you can put your bike up on the sidewalk and walk it, or ride around the block.

[Gerg]

Driving the wrong way in a one-way lane on a major road is indeed a pretty egregious violation. I wonder how he would have reacted if it had been a cyclist travelling legally.

[Lisa]

It is frustrating when the police don't follow traffic laws. I see this in my city too.

Here we have a law against letting your car idle yet my husband saw our mayor leave his car running while he went inside for 15 minutes! He was supposedly one of the people who help create the law!

[Sans auto]

#1. If cyclists are ever going to get respect, they are going to have to earn it by following the rules.

#2. Oddly enough, the same applies to police officers; respect comes by following the rules.

While I agree with Nix Smith and think you should call and complain (I call the cops a couple times a month to report motorists who are aggressive to the point of endangering my safety). If it does nothing else, it lets some higher ups at the police station know that there are cyclists in the world and they care enought to take the time to call.

What I have found to be more effective than calling to complain is calling to give compliments. Get the number of a police car who waits for you rather than squeezing through a gap that would have put you in danger. Call and ask that the officer be given a compliment. I've done that with the buses here and have had a pretty good response, there are several bus drivers that will now wave and cheer every time I go by.

Possitive reinforcement is ALWAYS more effective than negative reinforcement. (but that doesn't mean that negative reinforcement isn't sometimes needed).

[R]

I have to agree with Jen on this one. As a cyclist, other people riding the wrong way on bikes is one of the biggest dangers I face, particularly in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. I'd love it if police would write more citations. I only ride the wrong way by mistake or if I have to (to get around an accident or something like that), and I'd be willing to take my chances in the rare instances I do it to help ensure my and others' safety the rest of the time.

That said, I totally agree that cops parked in the bike lane is a big problem. I remember talking to a girl a couple of years ago who'd been arrested at Critical Mass -- she told me the paddywagon that took the arrestees to jail parked in the bike lane outside the precinct! She said she only wished she had had her camera handy, but of course she was handcuffed and couldn't take a photo. What a shot that would have been.

[Rhett (Greentime)]

I see this all too often down here in South Florida. One particularly rough day on the road, there had been an accident in a parking lot on the other side of the road from where I was riding, and a van belonging to someone related to the victim had parked in the bike lane on my side (opposite the scene of the accident) where it's illegal to park anyway. I didn't even realize it was a parked vehicle because it's not a parking area, and I missed it by only a few feet.

Most people seem to see bicycle lanes as parking lanes that sometimes have bicycles in them. The only way to straighten this out is to get the numbers of cyclists up. I'm doing my part.

That said, the cop did have a minor point. Since your blog post isn't clear on this, I'm guessing you turned your bike around in the bike lane and rode the wrong way. If you want to have the respect of a vehicle, you have to take the responsibility for obeying traffic laws, and that means you can't go the wrong way in a bike lane. But besides that, arguing with a cop on duty is always a losing proposition. It's far better to get tag and/or badge numbers and phone in a complaint. Telephoned complaints have more anonymity and make you less vulnerable to reprisals.

And it's sad that reprisals could happen. As Hunter S. Thompson once said-- "There can be no justice in a society until proper respect for the law is is taught to those who enforce it."

Or you could just do like one of my punk friends did back in college-- keep a satchel of golf balls and pelt offenders. *wink* Just kidding.

[Nick]

When my girlfriend from Prague was visiting, she was amazed at how pedestrians don't have the right-of-way in uncontrolled (i.e. no traffic lights) crosswalks. I told her that pedestrians do by law, but nobody follows it and its not worth getting hit by a car.

She said a cop car wouldn't even stop when she was in the crosswalk - so yea, it's obvious that those pigs don't follow the laws that they are supposed to enforce.

[kat]

you should send this picture in to http://nyc.mybikelane.com . :)

[Jen]

Boy, I hope that you're planning to send something about this to the Police Dept. There really should be a complaint in here - it's not right for the cops to ignore the laws they're trying to protect, and then threaten you when you try to ask them about it.

[Jen from Brooklyn]

I agree with that, Sans Auto. When traffic cops bother to acknowledge my existance and include me in traffic flow, I always smile and thank them. I think your approach is a good one, and I should do more calling in to compliment. But I also think that complaints are important, precisely because they give us visibility.

[ashley]

Just to chime in--

I'm from Ohio and my husband recently got a ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk. $52. (A parking ticket here is less than HALF that.)

If they won't give us bike lanes here (or any kind of driver education/awareness campaign) they can't expect us to endanger our lives!

It's legal for police to ride on the sidewalks, by the way. Because they "can't ride in the streets! It's dangerous." - straight from the lips of one of our finest.

Oh man.

[KeyboardCowboy]

Please people. Bikers do not need to gain any respect by following the traffic laws. We all know that cars, pedestrians AND bikes break the law constantly. We must share the road - it is for all of us, bike lane or not. Observe the obstruction and merge with the rest of us.

I commute daily in downtown Chicago and can say definitively that pedestrians are the absolute worst when it comes to traffic laws. Ten people will cross against a red light, but if one biker does it's the end of the world and we get yelled at.

Cars are easily the next worse offenders but are limited with what they can do.

Bikes just get in where they fit in and in my observance, break the least amount of laws while being the best solution for congestion.

I AM NOT however a supporter of Critical Mass, which I think is the wrong way to send a message. That is a blatant anti-car rally with to regard for rules or sharing.

[SarahP]

Any abuse of power makes me SO ANGRY!! I hope you do call in a complaint! The positive reinforcement idea is great too! I guess when you're going to question someone's illegal activity you have to be completely sure you haven't done anything wrong either (ie: riding the wrong way).

[the opoponax]

One of the main things that frustrates me about the bicycle politics of NYC is the way that cops are far too ticket-happy with cyclists. I would assume that, had you been driving and felt the need to reverse down the block a little to ask a cop something, they wouldn't have threatened you with a ticket.

Do we need to spread the word about the rules of the road as they pertain to cyclists? Definitely (I see way too many people riding against traffic, riding on sidewalks, running lights, etc). Are fascist ticketing policies going to do that? No. And what's worse, they discourage people from using bikes as regular transportation, because there's always the possibility that some cop is going to give you a hard time.

What's even worse is that in many cases, when drivers violate the rules of the road as they pertain to cyclists, the drivers get a pass. And I know of several instances where a driver hitting a cyclist (even causing serious injury) isn't even considered a traffic accident, and the police don't even get involved.

[emily]

Colin, you've touched upon my pet [biking] peeve. On one of the major roads on the campus where I study/work, drivers turning into parking lots and delivery areas will turn into the bike lane (at a 90-degree angle to the direction of travel) and stand there while they wait for the pedestrians in the sidewalk to clear. Argh.

Even better: delivery trucks, at locations where the bike lane goes from a street up to a sidewalk, block the little ramp with their trucks so they can use it to drag their dollies. I always comment to them directly when I see it.

I think you should file a complaint about the cop.

[emily]

Something like these posts would help (see along the side of the bike path). And a post at the entry to the bike path, standing in the middle: that would make it impossible for cars to enter, while bikers could easily go left or right past it.

www.bund-bin.de/projekte/images/3032_05.jpg

[Rochelle]

Is it just me or does anyone see the sense in a Police car or emergency vehicle needing to occasionally get inside it's destination as quickly as possible? Which means not wasting the time to parallel park in a busy metropolis. I admire what cyclists do to cut down on traffic, save the environment, etc. But, really, is it that hard to slow down and safely drive around the offending city vehicle or delivery truck? As a I driver, I encounter the same roadblocks and simply take a breath and do my best to maneuver around it.

[mfs]

rochelle-
if you've biked in a bike lane and had this happen, you wouldn't see it as simply maneuvering around cars. it's very difficult and dangerous to merge into traffic as a biker, especially when the traffic is moving twice your speed.

I've never seen an officer responding to an emergency parked in a bike lane. only ones writing tickets or getting lunch.

what's the point of bike lanes if you can't reliably depend on them? traffic enforcement is non-existent in this city.

[Jen from Brooklyn]

Just to clarify - when I said a massive education and enforcement campaign, what I meant was education and enforcement for EVERYBODY. That includes cars and buses and trucks and taxis and spacy pedestrians as well as bikes. The parking laws in NYC are very complicated, but when you get a $100 ticket, you figure them out really quickly. How about a $100 for turning without signalling? How about a $100 ticket for standing and spacing out in the bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge?

(phew, I sure do get het up every time Colin makes a post about cycling :) )

[Rosa]

What I think is funny is how, if a car is parked or stopped in the bike lane and I go out into traffic to go around it, the cars you are merging with will shout at *me*. I'm absolutely sure that they don't go home thinking "Damn, it sure messes with traffic when people park in the bike lane", they think "Bikers block traffic!"

We're so used to working our lives around the requirements of cars, we don't even see it when it happens.