I’ve said many times before that the way to change the NYPD’s attitude would be to have the promotion and career prospects of an officer in charge of traffic policing at every precinct depend on the trend in traffic injuries and deaths within the precinct. The incentives to issue pointless tickets for non-dangerous behavior would evaporate and there would suddenly be an urgent imperative to crack down on speeding and refusal to yield by motorists.

It’s a pure and simple numbers game. We need quality enforcement. All for ticketing wrong way riding. Anything that endangers pedestrians. Riding on sidewalks in congested areas. Dangerously blowing a light. But most of this stuff isn’t helping anybody accomplish anything but drive down cycling and marginal infractions.

One thing that might help? During these crackdowns also have police actively writing summons to drivers. At least cyclists will see a balance.

They aren’t going to stop doing this until they fear being hurt when they abuse their power. They still have de Blasio, and most other executive/legisltative authorities in the city/state governments, protecting them from consequences.

Or bikes that don’t have lights while riding at night. Because that a-hole almost hit me and then yelled at *me* like I did something other than not see the invisible bike careening towards me.

**off soapbox**

They wouldn’t be doing this if there weren’t quotas.

This is the kind of thing that makes people hate police and not want to bike in NYC. These ticket blitzes should be condemned.

NYPD should put more cops on bikes so they know what it’s like.

Cops on bikes do NOT learn what it’s like for the rest of us. They do whatever they want with no fear of consequences.

Hate is a strong word. Police violence, stop&frisk etc might provoke hate.

This undermines respect for their competence on even simple stuff.

Far too many in NYPD seem to want to harass the law-abiding citizens of NY rather than, say, doing their job. Time to liquidate NYPD and get rid of it. It’s so rotten that only starting completely fresh will help. (This will also get rid of the FOP police union, which is actually run by a *traitor* who has committed *treason*.)

This is why traffic laws for bicycles need to be changed to reflect the actual realities of riding a bicycle in the city. Bicycles aren’t cars and shouldn’t be enforced the same way. Police themselves aren’t the problem (at least not completely). OF COURSE they’re going to go for the easy tickets, inconsistently, as needed. They can’t enforce everything, so to make themselves look good, they go after the easy stuff before the harder stuff. The easy laws to target regarding bicyclists are superfluous. A bicyclist going through a red light, after looking for pedestrians and cars doesn’t hurt anyone and is as common as jaywalking. There’s zero reason that it should be illegal.

Let’s not give the NYPD these easy, unnecessary laws when choosing what they feel like enforcing that day.

Sounds about right. I drive, bike, and walk in the city, and I frequently see all manner of driving ills happen right in front of police officers and nothing is done. Just this weekend, I saw a unmarked cargo van blow through a red light about 2-3 seconds late, while a cop was sitting in the intersection waiting to turn left. So this van *badly* running a red light, actually nearly hit the police car. Did he do anything? No, just proceeded with his turn.

You also see some of the worst “blocking the box” and terrible driving right in front of the 78th Pct at Bergen and 6th in Brooklyn. A cop or two who are bored could literally walk outside and issue tickets as fast as they can write.

But, they don’t, because, I think, the vast majority of police officers drive to work, driving and parking with varying degrees of illegality, and so when they see other drivers breaking similar laws, it’s met with a shrug.

Traffic Court in NYC is a total joke. Most of the summons they write are money generating items and not for the safety of the road. Out of 10 about 2 seemed legitimate. As for me I was there in late March for biking tickets. One was going the wrong way down the street, the next was no helmet, another was for no light l on bike and the last was not listening to the cop. The cop showed up in court. I expected that. The judge ended up throwing out 3 of the 4 and I had to pay 50 dollars for going down the street the wrong way. Well I made it up for fare beating on the subways for 4 months. The state of NY stole $50 from me so I just decided to steal my money back for $50 the cost of the fine plus the lost salary of a day off for me and traveling to and from traffic cost. Cost of lost salary, $290. Cost of travel to Traffic court $5 and eating $5 after court in Coney Island. OK. The state of NY got $50 from me but the MTA which is run by the state lost $400 from me for Fare Beating for about 3.5 months. So in the end of the day the MTA/State of NY loses. I look at the $50 as a prepayment of future transit fares which I stole back. HA HA HA!!!