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In all the excitement of a three-day weekend we plum forgot that this past Friday was the last Friday of the month. And you know what that means don't you? Time for the police to go out and give tickets willy-nilly to every other person they see on a bicycle. Mike over at Bike Blog wasn't able to attend this months Critical Mass either, but he still managed to pull together a report on this months ride, and it looks like it was one of the worst ones yet. A few choice bits:
- 8:09 pm "people at 8th and Broadway got really bizarre tickets. Told by police that they are being stopped and ticketed for being in the middle of the street...hmmm, I thought you were supposed to ride your bike in the street. Anyway, ticket says...bikes were more than 2 abreast, which legally we have found to be a ridiculous charge. People being ticketed were told to stay in the middle of the street while being written the bogus offense. Tourist from Amsterdam got ticket on his first critical mass, now he has a court date and is leaving the country in a week...welcome to NYC."
- 9:00 pm "At Columbus Circle a woman with a bike was buying ice cream from a truck. She was slightly in the street, police arrested her."
- 9:34 pm "One guy had recieved a ticket earlier for not having a head lamp. At the Library he was issued another ticket for no light...He pleaded with the cops and said, what am I supposed to do...go to a bike shop and get a lamp. He was rewarded with two more tickets."
- 9:50 pm "Got a report that around 40th and Broadway a woman was doored by a cop car while in motion. She was in the bike lane. She face planted and broke her colar bone. There is credible evidence that entire incident was witnessed."
OK, this is out of control! At this point in the game, with gas prices at the level they are at, to have the city government using its police force to treat bicyclists in such an inappropriate and deplorable manner is just absurd. Mike Bloomberg, whose administration has lots to be proud of otherwise, needs to get his priorities in order and get a grip, otherwise this is only going to get worse before it gets better. It's just common sense!
Photograph of the February CM from everyday_i_live's flickr stream.
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we need to start a super bike gang like the guys in Road warrior. We need to start a revolution and destroy every automobile in the city. Bikers of the world UNITE AND TAKE OVER!!!
don't know what to say.
pepper spray wouldn't of helped,
all this is doing is making people hate cops.
and hate bloomberg,
very bad PR.
hey, I didn't vote for him.
it's dinkins time baby.
Yet, there were shootings and stabbings every day last week.
No cops around when that happened.
I will aaaaaaaaalways remember bloomberg for his behavior with this whole thing.
Honestly, CM is such a pain in the ass. They stop traffic illegally for their own benefit, and ride around with more priority than pedestrians.
I don't mind people on bikes (hell, I ride one). But when you start disrupting traffic and whine about the cops so much, you should pay the price.
You don't see massisve organizations of people walking illegally down 6th avenue randomly disrupting traffic and re-routing cars.
two.oh i agree completely. critical mass has always been more of a "disprut the city" type of ride than a "bike awareness" ride.
To the two posts above: I don't know about where in NYC you go but there are pedestrians all over jaywalking and getting in the way every day. The good thing is that they jam up the cars.
Critical Mass is NOT about disrupting anything, its about showing that bikes belong on the street, its about taking our legally justified space. Its about promoting safe, clean, quiet transportaion that doesn't cause traffic jams, car accidents, pollution, fucked up parking. I know the REAL NYers love all of that or think the city shold only be polulated with millionaire Right Wing types. Which isn't sustainable and makes no sense.
Before y ou comment on Critical Mass or even riding a bike in NYC (or anywhere) it would be good if y ou actually witnessed it foryourself and not just read from rags like NY Post.
The NYPD in its wisdom blocks intersections completely (to cars AND bikes ). The CM rides go through and in 5 minutes are gone. No problems. Often the rides don't take the entire street and much more often than not, intersections aren't blocked.
Rumors are spread about the Massers being anarchists which is a lie. There is another rumor about the Mass rides blocking emergency personnel which is another lie.
The CM stopped to let a fire truck go by that happened to mysteriously come out of nowhere EXACTLY at the same time the CM left Union Square on the same street.
Even if the CM lived up to the rumors, the tactics of the NYPD like the secret, illegal surveillance, driving trucks on the sidewalk and down bike/ped paths, pulling people off of their bikes, detaining people standing on the sidewalk for "running a red light 15 minutes ago", standing talking in the bike path on Broadway (or was that 6th?) ... all of that is not only illegal but shady and cowardly.
If you support that and think its right, you have a warped sense of right and wrong.
To everyone else:
I have photos from the CM up on Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianmcgloin/sets/72057594070006174/ ). I'll have my write up on my blog later, it will have the photos there, too.
I've ridden in the past few Critical Mass rides, writing and photographing also.
what the cops should do is to ticket all the motor vehicles stuck in city traffic everyday. now does that make sense? while they're at it they should check for good head/tail lights, horns, seatbelts, idling while stuck for 2 hours in traffic......
Cops have time for this but no time to patrol your neighborhood to keep it safe. go battle some real crime.
If you're a real ny'er, you'll know what brian mcG
wrote is true.
Has any of you forgotten the dreaded orange netting during the RNC, already?
those in CM, how many of your communicate or at least give warnings of potential fuzz action?
What bums me out about Critical Mass is that people get indignant about the police attempting to control something which is, by its very nature, supposed to be uncontrolable. It's an act of civil disobedience. The people are supposed to rise up and the police are supposed to try to control it.
Where it gets fishy is the tactics taken by the police. If they do unlawful things to combat what they consider to be unlawful, that's wrong and worth getting upset about. Such as the dooring incident mentioned in the post. But if they're ticketing people for things which are in the books and the people did them, I can't get too upset about it.
I think people should still do CM as an act of civil disobedience. More power to everyone. It's part of being an involved citizen. Just don't get upset if people get tickets/arrested for breaking the law.
CM always look like a bunch of immature jackasses, but pulling their childish stunts during Fleet Week really highlights their absurdity. The city is filled with men and women who make real sacrifices while a bunch of aging grad students piss and moan about nothing.
I suppose the five boro tour a few weekends ago was disruptive.
time to go key some kars.
and smok sum weed,
kars, kars, kars, kars,
smok sum weed,
my man.
"Its about promoting safe, clean, quiet transportaion that doesn't cause traffic jams, car accidents, pollution, fucked up parking."
You mean like riding the subway?
You mean like trying to ride the subway right before the Christmas holiday, last year?
schmok sum weed
and key sum kars.
Nola, I have absolutely no idea what Fleet Week has anything to do with Critical Mass.
Should we all stop doing recreational activities while the sailors are here? What a ridiculous notion.
So people want to ride their bike in the street on a friday night? I don't know why this is so bad. Whether you're 16 or 60, CM is for everyone to join in and that the police continue to harass these people even after the courts allow them to ride, is beyond me. It disrupts traffic?? So do cars, so do buses, so do jaywalkers. To wage ticket-war on any of them is just as ridiculous.
Brian McGloin, I've witnessed these rides first hand since my freshman year in college(1999) i remmeber very clearly a whole group of bikes sitting in the intersection blocking traffic from moving...they were hooting and hollering and relishing the fact that they were blocking traffic...up and down the streets i saw police cars that had their sirens on honking to get through the traffic (my only assumption was they were trying to get to these guys blocking the intersection)...at first i thought it was sorta funny, i guess the college prankster side of me, but soon i began to realize these guys were just being assholes...
back in 1999, there were only 50 people in CM.
I've seen them from my window going uptown via sixth ave and back then the rides went on till midnight.
i agree with jay,
kars kars kars kars
schmok some weed
schmok some weed
and for the patriot crowd,
FLEET WEEK!
AAAAAAAAYOOOOOOOOOOO!
hacksaw jim dugan's in town,
do yo hear what the rock izzzzz cookin?
Well reasoned, Tom.
Back before the RNC, the cops did an exceptional job handling Critical Mass in manhattan. They managed to keep the thing from bottling up traffic too badly and held down altercations between cars and bikers. Now it's like a monthly riot training execrise for nypd, which is a fantastic shame. If you want to see what CM is supposed to be like, you've got to head out to Brooklyn these days.
Giving out tickets for non-existing crimes is harrasment. Fuck the NYPD.
two.oh is right - CM is a pain in the ass. Having witnessed them myself on Park Ave last year, I can tell you these assholes are totally disrespectful to pedestrians. What is it that they can't stop for lights and let folks cross the street?? Why the fuck should I wait for 10 mins to walk where I'm going while they have their fun blocking up the street? Fuck those assholes.
Listen up, CM riders: Class action lawsuit. Look into it. Probably the only way to end this nonsense from NYPD.
by it's very nature CM is chaos you get riders who respect the laws of traffic and the 'anarchist' types that don't give rats ass about any of that right-of-way crap.
it's paradox yea? imagine if CM finally had its way and bicycles dominated the road, we'd still have assholes cutting us off left and right! well, except the chances of getting into a horrible deadly accident would be much slimmer.
No, it's really not.
"Every bicycle when in use during the period from one-half hour after sunset to one-half hour before sunrise shall be equipped with a lamp on the front which shall emit a white light visible during hours of darkness from a distance of at least five hundred feet to the front and with a red light visible to the rear for three hundred feet. Effective July first, nineteen hundred seventy-six, at least one of these lights shall be visible for two hundred feet from each side."
No problemo,
I'll attach my surefire to my bike,
front and rear.
and my fake air horn which is really pepper spray
can't forget my bell.
I got my ride all pimped out Bond style.
time to break some tailights.
UGH.
Half of you morons are so goddamn annoying and myopic: "key cars, break taillights, smoke weed, civil disobedience," blah blah blah. I'm embarrassed to be associated with the dickbrains that post that shit.
Reading the official accounts, at first I get pissed at the cops for unfairly targeting and harrassing bikers. And then I read these idiot posts.
Yeah, and you WONDER why you get harrassed and ticketed.
I'm a lifelong bike rider in this city, and it's imbeciles with that attitude that are giving bikers a bad rep. I know it's not easy to ride a bike here, but you don't realize: ONE stupid act by a bikerider reflects infinitely on the rest of us.
NOWHERE does it state that CM is about civil disobedience.
If any of you jackasses could read, it says on a main website:
Some CM riders try to tie up traffic as much as possible and be otherwise confrontational with motorists. Such riders are missing the point about Critical Mass. CM is a celebration of cycling, not a war against motorists. CM is about asserting our right to the road, not denying others their right to the road. Those who want to play juvenile games are encouraged to stay at home instead.
Look, it's bad enough with CARS and their goddamn presumptuous attitudes of entitlement as it is. Most car and truck drivers don't even know pedestrians and bicycles BY LAW have the right of way, and treat the road as their birthright.
Don't give drivers and pedestrians and cops any more ammunition to hate bikers with your immature belligerent attitude. Please, just ride the ride and act with some modicum of civility, or you are RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE ELSE.
z1, I think those posts are written by trolls in the internet game.
smoke a bowl and chill out.
Hi, look, whoever responded to me telling me to 'chill out,' this is really pretty serious.
Cops are targeting bikers for arrest, and alot of people are getting injured and harrassed for no reason.
Vehicle drivers have either little respect or contempt for bike riders.
This isn't a GAME, ok? It's bad enough that when you're on a bicycle on NYC streets, you're really vulnerable to injury. Stupid attitudes like yours just add to the 'anti-bicycle' sentiment that infects the city.
Walking over the Manhattan bridge:
The downtown side(south)walkway is clearly signed and defined for pedestrians only. The uptown side(north)is clearly signed and defined for bicycles only.
Why on earth are the there cyclists on the downtown(south) walkway?
Ace
For the same reason there are pedestrians in the bike lanes, cops parking in the bike lane, taxis ...
Tourists on the bike side of the Brooklyn Bridge walking 6 abreast. J-walking pedestians talking on cell phones or headphones who step into the path of cyclists and seem surprised to see someone actually on the street.
If people followed the rules just enough to not slam into each other (which isn't a big deal and I'm not one to follow all of the rules) then it would be easier for everyone.