Comments on: Cyclist Told He Shouldn’t be on the Road - By Police

By: haidee

haidee — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:22:51 +0000

hey all, just to let you know, i did send an email to the mayor and the bike coordinator in the planning dept. with a version of my story and a link to this blog.

By: Jan Blackman

Jan Blackman — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:50:44 +0000

For goodness sakes, make a copy of the law, write a nice polite letter to the Chief of Police, the Mayor and the City Council and send it out! Have your bike riding friends do the same thing. Hopefully, the message will get to the police that the law counts and that the anti-bike culture has got to stop!

By: jack

jack — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:01:15 +0000

WoW! I’ve had similar experience with ignorant police on the streets. A less life-threatening example are the officers on bikes downtown that patrol the sidewalks on their bikes. They go the wrong way on one ways etc. Many people may even consider these guys as potential cycling safety role models and assume they are riding properly.

By: mimi

mimi — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:10:21 +0000

and THEN what happened???

we have lots of bicyclist-friendly lawyers in my town, what about in Providence???

By: haidee

haidee — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:31:50 +0000

I am unfortunately not surprised at all. except by the call for backup. that is beyond ridiculous. a similar thing happened to me a few months ago. i was riding on wickendon street, towards the point street bridge, when a car blew by me, within inches, obviously on purpose cause the road is very wide there. he was blaring the horn, and yelled something about get out of the road as he zoomed by. well, he got stuck at the light under the overpass and i caught up to him in seconds. i went right to the window which was still open from him yelling out of it, and confronted him. i explained that he should know that bikes have the right to be in the road, that its state law. he says ‘oh yeah’ and pulls out his badge. i didnt see where he was a cop, and before i could say anything the light turned green and he zoomed off. so he was basically either telling me i was wrong about the law, in which case he is ignorant of it, or he was telling me that as a cop, he told me what the law was, not the other way ’round, which is more frightening.
anyway. good job for writing a letter to the editor about it. without any info on the man, i didnt see the point of complaining to anyone. but this has got to stop.

By: Esserman

Esserman — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:04:52 +0000

This guy should file a complaint with the PPD to get it on the record and possibly get the officers better educated.

By: Bike-To-Brown » Blog Archive » Cyclist Told He Shouldn’t be on the Road - By Police

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:51:14 +0000

[...] a police SUV, pulled over, and then told he shouldn’t be riding on the roads! I posted an entire thread on the Bike Providence website. It is truly amazing that even the police don’t know the [...]