Recently the Irvine PD has upped the enforcement of stop sign violations and seem to be targeting cyclists. BCI has seen several cases of IPD "setting up shop" with a couple of motorbikes tucked out of sight and nabbing multiple cyclists for failing to stop at a sign. It's curious they know where to be and when, but BCI routes are listed on their website so it would be easy for the cops to find out the route for a given day and rake in a few extra bucks on a weekend. If you're part of a group "just passing thru" Irvine, note that the City passed an ordinance limiting bicycles to riding 2 abreast within the bike lane.
dougP -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joe Bartoe Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 10:28 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [BOB] Cops in Orange and San Diego Counties Hi All, Saturday, I had an interesting experience. I was approaching a stop sign in San Clemente when two OC Sheriffs on motorcycles passed through the intersection going the opposite direction. One of these guys, upon seeing me, came to a complete stop in the middle of the road so he could see whether I would stop at the sign. Part of me was tempted to stop without putting my foot down to see what he would do, but I decided that any cop willing to stop and watch me like this was just waiting to ruin my ride, so I put my foot down and then continued through. I'm still in disbelief that this guy actually stopped in the middle of a roadway and obstructed traffic (he almost got hit by a car from behind) just to watch me stop at the intersection. It seemed to me that these two were patrolling for the sole purpose of ticketing cyclists. The Irvine Bicycle Club was having their annual weekend trip to Carlsbad and back this past weekend and these two were heading down along their route. Last month, there was another club doing a ride down in San Diego County and motorcycle officers in Oceanside were camped out along their route (note that these were club rides, not big organized rides), issuing tickets to riders who failed to completely stop at a stop sign. In both cases, this was done on a road that was not a major road and at places where riders going through the stop sign would not cause much harm even if they did blow through them (they were at T-intersections where riders were passing through the top, where they wouldn't obstruct a turning car). With all the bad driving that I see all over, this seems like a big waste of time and it feels like these guys are singling out cyclists. In addition, they seem to be a little too aware of where bike club rides are going to be and taking advantage of that situation. Sorry, this is more of a rant, but it annoys me a lot that there seems to be some element in law enforcement that feels that we as cyclists are such scofflaws that we merit this extra attention. Joe _________________________________________________________________ HotmailR has ever-growing storage! Don't worry about storage limits. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutoria l_Storage_062009 _______________________________________________ Internet-bob mailing list [email protected] search and browse the archives: http://search.bikelist.org unsubscribe: http://www.bikelist.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-bob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
