Cop: Cyclist Crackdown Is Robin Williams's Fault

Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose hilarious play The Motherfucker With the Hat you should definitely go see, tells Vulture he just got slapped with a $330 ticket for blowing through a red light on his bicycle on 72nd Street. As if that wasn't infuriating enough, the officer who wrote him the ticket offered an apologetic explanation—as they tend to do—for giving Guirgis the ticket. As in all things, the blame can be placed on Robin Williams. Just in case Old Dogs wasn't enough of an outrage, Guirgis gives us this:

I got a $330 ticket on my bicycle on the way down here for running a red light. [The police officer] told me that there’s a clampdown because someone let Robin Williams out of a ticket on his bike the other night, so they have to write everybody up.

You'll recall that Williams has been bragging all over town about how cops let him out of a ticket for biking on the sidewalk once they realized he was the star of Patch Adams (and, currently, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which you should also definitely go see!). Unfortunately for Guirgis, writing a critically-lauded Broadway show doesn't quite rise to the level of summons-waiving status. (Maybe next time he should ride a tandem bike with Chris Rock, who stars in his show?) Of course, it's also unfortunate that the NYPD has gone completely insane!

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By John Del Signore in News on April 22, 2011 5:22 PM

Comments [rss]

Jorge Cortes

Bicyclists need to start observing traffic laws if they want to be taken seriously. Fine every last one of these fucking idiots. They contribute to their own deaths by feeling they're above the law.

canofpeas

People like you need to shut the fuck up with your middle class platitudes if you want to be taken seriously.

blink667

I just love taking biking advice from people who've never been on one.

llchristyll

If you run a red light in a car, the ticket is $50 - why is it so much more expensive on a bicycle? Surely it's the same statute...

cprensky

is that true? i've been wondering about the discrepancy between bikes and cars this whole time.

llchristyll

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/ht...

Darek Miles

Not quite. That's a ticket for a red light camera, where they cannot prove who the driver was. The low fee is to tempt people to just pay it, instead of fighting it, which they would easily have thrown out.

If you got pulled by a cop for running a red, the fee would be much higher and you'd get get points on your license.

Dylan Alexander

Don't run red lights. That simple. Follow traffic signals like you're supposed to.

bobloblawslawblog

$65 for not moving your car during street cleaning; $150 for parking in front of a hydrant; $330 for riding a bicycle through a stop sign. So, the cheaper fines are for people driving cars that cost $15+K. Sweet.

starrygordon

It's curious how schizzy the city government has become about bicycles. On the one hand, hundreds of bike lanes; on the other, sudden enforcement of rules no one has paid any attention to for 100 years, rules which were drawn up without bicycles in mind.

The city should probably try to figure things out. As fuel costs rise and public transit continues to deteriorate, more and more people are going to be using bicycles out of necessity.

JeRsEy JiM

Now if the cop at the end said "Nanu Nauu" That would have been funny.

Matt Buchholz

as a 6 day a week cyclist in the city, am i supposed to get upset because someone got a ticket for, "blowing through a red light on his bicycle on 72nd Street" because i'm not. that's exactly the kind of shit cyclists should get tickets for, imo. if he stopped, proceeded with caution, and was ticketed, still against the law and tough to argue, but that's the policy change i'm in favor of.

100

The police are not showing discretion in ticketing based on how dangerous/agressive the light-running is. There is no pattern. I know a guy ticketed for looking around and crawling through a light.

And I love how cops tend to pass the blame for their indiscretion. The problem is the complaints people made for treating a famous person differently. The complainers cause the crackdown. Right....

Trustafarian

These ticketing blitzes are fuckin retarded. How come there can't be a steady enforcement of ALL rules, at all times.

I just walked along the Kent Ave and there were 3 cars parked in the bike lane near the CVS - Edge. Meanwhile there's a pretty boy cop parked 15 feet away leaning against his car like he's the Fonz talking to some hot woman. I wanted to go over and direct his attention to the 3 easy tickets, but was scared I'd get clubbed and arrested.