Dear Streetsblog Readers: How Do You Handle a Sidewalk Riding Ticket?

A reader sends along this question about how to deal with the legal aftermath of riding a few feet on an empty sidewalk:

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a little advice for my court date. I got a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk last month and am wondering whether to plead guilty or innocent. The other problem is that I can’t read the court date on the ticket. I am going to call the court building and see if they can look it up as I already talked to an officer in the precinct I got the ticket, and he advised me to just show up at the court which seems stupid to me. (I got the ticket out in an industrial section of Bushwick and simply rode up on the sidewalk when I got to my destination to lock up my bike.)

I’m not a lawyer, nor have I ever had to contest a ticket, let alone a silly one like this. If you’ve got some advice, pass it along in the comments. If you don’t have any advice but simply wish to comment on the NYPD traffic enforcement priorities on display here, feel free.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

NYPD Shifts Sidewalk Bicycling Tickets Out of Criminal Court

By Stephen Miller |
NYPD is issuing substantially fewer criminal summonses for sidewalk bicycling, opting to enforce the violation with traffic tickets instead. While the shift is a good step toward decriminalizing the behavior, as a result there’s also less information available about how police are applying the law against sidewalk biking. Last year, police issued 6,069 bicycle-related criminal summonses, down from 25,082 in 2013, according to a report NYPD […]

NYPD Bike Enforcement Carries High Price in Communities of Color

By Stephen Miller |
Editor’s note: Stephen filed one last story before wrapping up his tenure at Streetsblog earlier this month. Here it is. The New York Police Department hands out a lot of tickets to cyclists — in fact, for years the number of sidewalk cycling tickets outpaced the number of speeding tickets local precincts gave to drivers. Bike tickets are not […]

NYPD Emerges as New Focus for NYC’s Livable Streets Movement

By Aaron Naparstek |
Arrest Her! T.A. membership coordinator Abby King tears up the streets on a "sport utility bicycle." With their rampant illegal parking, refusal to enforce basic traffic laws and unwillingness to treat pedestrian injuries and fatalities with any level of seriousness, the Police Department is establishing itself as the New York City government agency most in […]