New York pedestrians completely ignore the traffic laws and would be outraged to hear that someone had gotten a ticket for anything they did in the street on foot, no matter how crazy or dangerous. If you haven’t ridden a bike in the city, you have no idea what it’s like. When you’re on a bike and have the right of way, at each intersection you have to figure out how to safely get around the hordes of idiots standing in the bike lane looking alternately at their iphone and for a break in between the cars to shoot out into. Often they think bikes don’t count, so will walk right in front of you (when the bike has the right of way). Also in no danger from the cops are people leaving their parked cars, who open their doors right in the paths of bikers, often killing them.

Many people bike safely in New York, by being very careful and attentive to both cars and pedestrians. Those who aren’t don’t last long before they end up in the ER. If an intersection is clear, whether or not it has a red light, it’s exactly as safe to bike through it at reasonable speed as to walk through it, except the bikers are paying a lot more attention to what they are doing.

Police have always been free to ticket dangerous bicycling and have always done so. What’s new now is a campaign to go after safe bicyclists, ticketing them for safely going through empty intersections or for pointless technical violations. Even bicycling in Central Park is a target, with people getting ticketed for going down a hill at 15mph. Not just regular traffic cops are being told to do this, the undercover force is out on the anti-bike campaign too. This is an organized campaign of harassment coming from the top levels of the NYPD. I’m interested to hear that delivery people are just given warnings, that’s good, but those like myself who use a bike to get to work or ride in the Park are being forced to stop doing this. That seems to be one goal of the campaign, with the NYPD police chief deciding to go after two things he hates: bicyclists and the Transportation commissioner. Bicycling in the city is going to be very effectively suppressed, with lots of shiny new bike lanes empty. Pedestrians may cheer this along, but just wait, you may be next…

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— comment posted in response to Cops Also Ticketing Cyclists For Ignoring Stop Signs At Empty Intersections