If Traffic School isnt available in your town, you will either have to pay your fine, or go to court and fight your ticket. If you are alleged to have run a stop sign, was the stop sign visible, or concealed? Asking for a trial by declaration. The two bridge bike lane project caused such a stir, that safe street advocates from San Francisco wanted to get in touch to work a similar transportation initiative in California. Many residential streets with one lane in each direction have a stencil indicating bikes can use the entire lane. You may not agree with any of that, but that is how the court works. Sometimes it happens because an officer is unfamiliar with the law. If traffic school for cyclists is available in your town, you should consider choosing this option rather than paying your ticket. But there are a couple of reasons to consider contesting your ticket, even if you are guilty. When a driver gets a traffic ticket, the driver has some optionsfight the ticket, pay the ticket, or go to traffic school. For example, if you rolled through a stop sign that was concealed by foliage, you need to present evidence that the stop sign was concealed by foliage; you dont need to waste time arguing about whether you were going 10 MPH or 15 MPH. It makes them uncomfortable. This is an option that is commonly available to drivers, but is only available to cyclists in a handful of cities, including Portland, OR; Santa Cruz, CA; Huntington Beach, CA; and Manhattan, NY. However, bikes are not as wide as cars, and that is one point where you can get significant cost reductions: A 100 km/h road needs to allocate at least 3.5m width per lane (2.5m truck plus safety distances), a cycle path may get away with 1.5m (0.5m bike plus safety distances). Bicycle riders can ride in a bus lane unless otherwise signed. But guess who else can present evidence? In 2019, New Yorkers bought more than 500 million bus tickets. The ticket doesNOTmean that you are guilty. If you want to hire a lawyer, they should do all the legwork for you. Address the judge as your honor, and be courteous to the officer who is testifying against you. The judge, who was familiar with both intersections, took one look at the photos and had the motorist arrested on the spot and charged with a criminal offense for submitting false evidence. But look at it from the courts perspective for a moment. You. Just take your ticket and ride away to fight this battle another day. However, if you are absolutely certain that you did not do what the officer says you did, and the officer is absolutely certain that you did break the law, there are only two possibilities to explain the discrepancy: one of you is mistaken, or one of you is lying. Step 2: Make a formal appeal. Not you. Most people are trying to move through traffic in a safe and smart way to get from point A to point B. It is just a summons to appear in court and answer the charge against you. Zero. If you pay the ticket, its equivalent to a guilty plea and conviction. Or suppose the officer says something like Well, I saw a cyclist ______[fill in the blank], and you are the only cyclist here. In order to prove that you violated the law, the officer is supposed to be able to positively identify you as the cyclist he (or she) observed breaking the law. Still, if an officer does make a mistake and tickets you, riding lawfully will be your best defense when you go to trial. Should you fight the ticket? If the officer that issued the ticket doesn't show up, it's almost automatically a win for you. Now consider a different scenarioyou were ticketed for riding on the sidewalk in a business district, but the reason you were on the sidewalk is you swerved to avoid a right hook and ended up on the sidewalk. Your goal in questioning the officer is not to help him reinforce his case against you; instead, your goal is to get the officer to reinforce your own argument. State trooper has a car pulled to the left side of the road which is causing all of the traffic in the hov lane to come into the non hov lanes. It doesnt really matter if you know you were breaking the law, or if you know you were riding lawfully. A cyclist doesnt even present the same danger on the road as a driver, and yet because traffic school is not typically an option available for cyclists, the cyclist may actually face a greater consequence for a traffic violation than a driver ticketed for the exact same offense. This means that the prosecution must prove that you committed a violation; you do not have to prove that you are innocent. Dispute a Ticket You can request a hearing online, by mail, or via the Pay or Dispute mobile app. You want to fight this battle in the proper venue, which is the courtroom. Either way, you may get a ticket. 7. (a) No person shall drive a motor vehicle in a bicycle lane established on a roadway pursuant to Section 21207 except as follows: (1) To park where parking is permitted. But there is one drawback to asking for a warning instead of a ticketyou risk saying something incriminating about your actions that can be used against you later in court. Because of the lingering effects a ticket can have on your life (raised insurance rates, a mark on your driving record, and so on) there are very few circumstances where it makes sense to just pay a ticket. Now what if you did break the law, but there were extenuating circumstances? Vernon Boulevard along the East River in Queens has seen many complaints. It could be a year or more away. So if you want to be compensated for your injuries (and expenses), fighting one of these unjust tickets is a must. The 11 steps in the Making Safe Space for Cycling in 10 Days guide are: Create a project list of the streets and crossings to be adapted, including Draft an action sheet for each project identifying Enable quick implementation Formally designate measures with the relevant authority Develop communications plan and notification signage Obtain as much information as possible at the scene. If you receive disclosure, and the officer shows up for court, you'll want to have some sort of case ready. This means that your insurance rates wont be affected, your drivers license wont be affected, and your driving record wont be affected. Theres even a saying in lawbad facts make bad law. Once you have been ticketed, you have three possible courses to follow: (Note that ignoring the ticket is the same as "accepting guilt."). But it does mean that you must appear in court. In this situation, you can make a necessity defenseriding on the sidewalk at that place was illegal, but it was necessary for you to ride onto the sidewalk to avoid injury, and you intended to return to the roadway immediately after your evasive maneuver. Or did they assume they saw something? However, your issuing council might only have a phone number and office hours. Traffic tickets are literally what DoNotPay was founded to handle. With so many people using the city's bus transit system each day, the local government decided a few laws needed to be passed and regulated certain lanes to be for set aside specifically for buses. Safety tips for bike riding in bus lanes: Keep to the left of the bus lane; Give way to buses at all times; Wait behind the bus if it is coming to a stop and do not overtake or undertake it. If this seems unfair to you, and you would like to see traffic school available for cyclists in your town, think about taking this issue on as a bicycle advocacy project for your town. As I said, your job will be to poke holes in the prosecutions case. Period. Ignoring the sign, the cyclist rolls through. The short-term downside of a bad decision at trial is that you will have to pay a traffic fine; the long-term downside of a bad decision at trial is that it can be persuasive precedent for another court in another trial. An officer may be mistaken on the facts of the case; this means that what the officer thinks happened did not actually happen. When your trial date arrives, you must be in court, on time, and prepared to go to trial. When the officer writes a ticket, he is making a non-custodial arrest. This means that instead of placing you under arrest and taking you to jail, the officer is giving you a summons (the citation or ticket) to appear in court and answer the charge against you. You don't need a driver's license to ride your bike, but in at least one state (California) you will need to present a driver's license or its "functional equivalent" (a state ID, a Passport, or a military ID) if you are stopped for a violation and the officer asks you to produce ID . The reality is, in the City of New York, your chances are slim. Suppose that you run a stop sign, get ticketed, and explain in court that you dont believe that cyclists should have to stop at stop signs, that you safely ran the stop sign, and that the Idaho Law should be the law in your state. This means that instead of going to trial, you go to traffic school. The benefit for you is that you avoid most of the negatives associated with getting a ticket. Bus lanes and bike lanes come and go as you move through different neighbourhoods, zones, and council territories. more info: there was a very very long line of traffic, that was not moving or barely moving. Officers had issued 35,089 summonses to vehicles parked in bike lanes . How Do I Understand The Fines and Codes On My Parking Ticket? If you were caught red-handed and you have no defense, and if your time is more valuable than the fine, then paying the ticket might make sense to you. When he asks you if you know why you were stopped, he is not making small talk. Whether you have a written trial or a trial in court, remember that you are innocent until proven guilty. The Fight against Anti-Car. Goldmark's ticket cited him for breaking section 4-12 (P) (1) of the city's traffic rules, which requires cyclists to use bike lanes whenever they are provided unless they are making a turn or . With your evidence-gathering in mind, lets revisit the officers fishing expedition: Officer: Do you know why I stopped you? VC21209(a) Motorcycle Vehicle in Bicycle Lane prohibited. After an investigation and subsequent ticketing, the submitter could receive 25% of the ticket valuewhich is expected to be $175. You might also consider saving yourself the embarrassment of having the officers video recording of your obvious violation of the law played back in court after you just denied breaking the law. Do not argue with the officer, do not treat the officer rudely, do not insult the officer. Binding precedent means that lower courts are bound to follow the decisions made by a higher court above it. Obtain as much information as possible at the scene. A bus lane ticket could result in a fine ranging from $115 to $150 if a motorist is cited for violating the rules. You may not have the option of going to traffic school. Road conditions? Although you might consider that to be a reasonable explanation of what happened, the court will not. Likewise, another judge in another courtroom can reach a different decision than the judge in your trial for the same reasonbecause the decision at your trial is not binding precedent. It goes like this, some may have heard this before. For example, No, I dont know why you stopped me.. Better yet, get your license up to date now and carry it, or other ID that law enforcement officers in your state accept, on your rides. This circular is meant to provide a general explanation of the legal process, but is not meant to be definitive. In fact, this is not at all true. We have helped over 300,000 people with their problems. Before your trial date, you should call Old City Hall to see if your disclosure is ready for pick-up: if it was ready but you don't come pick it up, it won't help you in court. Suppose you run a stop sign and get ticketed, but the reason you ran the stop sign was because it was concealed from your view, perhaps by foliage, or a large truck. In the past, I took care of my tickets by just getting a fine reduction, and doing traffic school just to get it off my chest.Thanks. What if you dont want to fight the ticket? The officer pulls the cyclist over, and the cyclist is ticketed. When you are in court, you are in the judges world. Lets ask whywas it because you werent paying attention? For more information, please see our Show Up To Court. You are even allowed to present alternative defenses. An alternative defense is a defense theory that is different from one of your other defense theoriesand the two defense theories dont even have to be consistent with each other.

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