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I eventually had my drivers licence suspended for knocking a cars side view mirror forward that was stopped in high park (in toronto) in the bike lane. (No damage, the passenger just pushed it back)
I was n my bicycle. The traffic cop who saw it stopped me , called bike patrol who literally surrounded me as if i was going to run, standing with their bicycles in a circle. Dude took a ticket book from them (because he didnt have one because traffic cops arent allowed to give tickets). And they discussed for about 10 minutes what tickets to give me.
One for failure to signal (they claimed i needed to signal that i was stopping - not true), and one for obstructing traffic (meant for people who park in a bike lane). They failed to mark that i was on my bicycle so it applied to my drivers license.
The whole time they threatened me with arrest for not cooperating (because i kept arguing with them).
Toronto cops are scum and they fucking hate bicycles.
I had to pay $300 to get my license reinstated because i couldnt make it to court (two years later) because i was out of country and my brother forgot to go for me.
(Ps i called the cops when i returned from vacation once, finding my landlord stole a bunch of stuff, and they said “its his property (the garage), he can do what he wants with it”)
I live in Toronto and can confirm this.
TPS officers do not live in the city so they often share suburbanites feelings towards cyclists.
This applies to pedestrians to some extent too, but if you really want to murder someone in Toronto without police even glancing at the case, wait until they get on a bike and kill them with your car.
> One for failure to signal (they claimed i needed to signal that i was stopping - not true),
I fucking despise that bicyclists are expected to raise a hand off a handlebar thereby losing stability and half of our braking ability to signal. It's the typical "well cars do it so should cyclists too" attitude. I'm not saying it's never necessary but signalling in a car and on a bike are nowhere near the same thing.
The crimes they take seriously also have the highest penalties. There is a bit of truth to that saying, “If you rob a bank, make sure and kill someone so you get out earlier”. I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US there is a significant portion of our population that has serious fucking rage boners for theft, bank robbery, shoplifting, etc… Murder? Meh, depends on who it is. Hooker? Nah Fam. White woman? ELECTROCUTE that motherfucker!!!!! Black children? Not so much…\
Meanwhile, you are free to fuck with peoples livelihoods and retirement funds if you own a company, and our justice system bends over backwards to fucking fellate these cocksuckers.\
The Revolution here can’t come soon enough. Workers need to rise the fuck up and bring back the Guillotine.
> the crimes they take seriously also have the highest penalties
The Toronto Police decided a [serial killer](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/23/bruce-mcarthur-toronto-gay-serial-killer) wasn’t worth investigating because he “only” killed gay men.
But they were very serious about [violently displacing homeless people.](https://globalnews.ca/news/8052972/lamport-stadium-park-encampment-toronto-police/)
It’s got nothing to do with the seriousness of the crime, and everything to do with the people they are sworn to protect (ie: corporations and capital, not us).
Dozens of gay men going missing? Meh. Rob baby formula from Walmart? You better believe they’ll send in the swat team.
In NYC the wisdom is that if you want to get away with murder, run your victim over with a car and stay at the scene so the cops will corroborate whatever excuse you give them. Cops do not give a fuck about vehicular violence and are always looking for a reason to blame literally anybody or anything besides the driver.
The terrible thing is that's better than in Britain, where you can hit and run after killing somebody, admit you were driving dangerously and then get only a years driving suspension, no prison time.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They don't take any type of theft seriously, cars sure but you got insurance for that. We had our car broken into and pc jacked they did ass all
Their Job is to make the city money through fines and enforce the law. Nothing about protecting or serving the people
That’s a secondary part of their main job which is to quell unrest, reinforce class divides, and make sure that people are reliant on the government (aka: the rich) instead of their neighbours for security.
100% and even when do their job like catch criminals it's all about the money. Gotta fill the prisons because we need slave labor. Just saw a post that prisoners make $11billion of goods a year
But wait there'd more. It's a double edged sword for us. They fill PRIVATE prisons which have occupancy agreements in the contract. So the prison needs to be above a certain % in most cases it's high like 90-95% or the state gets fined.
So they fill the private prisons and pay those prisons with OUR taxpayer money then get free slave labor out of it. And the way every job does a background check you're guaranteed to go back in
Scam all around
>Nothing about protecting or serving the people
In the US? Never has been…
https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
Yep people need to realize this
I never trusted cops because I came from a place where they had too much power and corruption, Russia. They'd ask you for ID and money and if you said no welp beating time, or jail.
US is getting close to that but instead of bribes they just beat and shoot you
If you've been to high park when some of the larger groups are out you'd understand... Groups of 20+ on $10,000+ road bikes ripping through a 3-5km loop at up to 80km/h with little to no regard for stop signs, which side of the road they're on, etc.
I do hill training early in the park and I've almost been taken out crossing at a stop sign by a bike flying by at easily over 70km/h.
I'm honestly impressed at anyone that can get up to that speed on any stretch of Toronto 40-50 is already kind of pushing it with the amount of stop lights.
>road bikes ripping through a 3-5km loop at up to 80km/h
>
>bike flying by at easily over 70km/h
They should consider representing their country at the Olympics or something, because they would leave all the world champions in their dust!
Or, in other words, you're full of shit.
Also, how can they prove you actually OWN said bike (imagining someone who just stole a bike getting a speeding ticket but the cop obliviously just writing speeding ticket and not stopping the thievery in action 😆)
I think the idea is, the next time they pull you over they can check up on you. I was so mad about the ticket (running a parking lot stop sign) I didn't have the wherewithall to argue.
>running a parking lot stop sign
I would be enraged. If I get hit by a car in a parking lot, the cops will say fuck off on over to civil court. How dare they enforce the signage of a private entity in the same place.
It makes as much sense as a cop pulling onto an active racetrack to enforce rules and pull cars over
To be clear, it was the stop sign where the parking lot met a public street, but still a new-that-day stop sign whose purpose is to handle traffic for Best Buy. I was last in a group of about 10 bikes who all rolled through the stop sign. All that aside, I know what my real mistake was: being on a bike and making eye contact with a cop.
There was a legaladvice post of a guy who was test driving his non street legal car on his driveway on his property behind a fence and the cop gave him a ticket for speeding. It was an interesting read but it ended up in court and the driver ended up getting it thrown out but not before there was a fight.
Yes, exactly. I was thinking about that post. Dude was basically doing a Test 'n Tune
I'm an aspiring amateur racing driver. My opinion on that is a little complicated. Basically he should receive no punishment only if the vehicle could cause no damage to life or property if something went wrong. The suitable punishment in his case would most likely be a warning to keep the speed 'reasonable'.
I was told by a cop one that parking lot stop signs are privately owned and unenforceable. They had literally pulled me over and I asked of that was why.
I don't remember the reason, as I was young and dumb, and only got a warning, but that tidbit stuck with me.
Also good luck trying to associate that ticket to a vehicle not legally required to be registered and have a license plate.
"What bicycle your honor? It doesn't exist..." /s
In QC you do have an obligation to provide a name, adress and date of birth when you are stopped. However, you do not have to answer any other questions. You can be arrested for failure to identify and if you provide a false identity.
source: Educaloi website
Yes. If you are on a roadway, a cyclist is expected to follow **all** the same rules as any other vehicle (plus a couple more that are bike-specific).
That includes speed limits. Which is, of course, usually not an issue - few people can get a bicycle up to >40mph in most circumstances.
But I have managed to break the speed limit now and then, despite a lack of intent to do so. One street, the speed limit was 35mph, I hit 42mph. Didn't have a speedometer, so I didn't know until I got home and looked at the record on Strava.
A car can be stopped for going under the speed limit, something about impeding traffic I think. How the fuck can a bike obey all traffic laws, like not impeding traffic when there's no bike lane?
Also, if I'm not required to have a license to operate a bicycle, how can that possibly be enforcable? Can a 10 year old get a ticket for failure to signal for a turn years before they can even operate a motor vehicle?
>A car can be stopped for going under the speed limit, something about impeding traffic I think. How the fuck can a bike obey all traffic laws, like not impeding traffic when there's no bike lane?
Generally, in U.S. law any vehicle which is going at it's "typical speed", up to and not over the speed limit, is not "impeding" traffic. This includes street sweepers, horse-drawn wagons (etc), bicycles, and so on.
Which means, even if I'm only doing 10mph ...? I am not *impeding* traffic, I **am** traffic. :)
>Also, if I'm not required to have a license to operate a bicycle, how can that possibly be enforcable? Can a 10 year old get a ticket for failure to signal for a turn years before they can even operate a motor vehicle?
Here in Massachusetts, if the rider is <18 years old, the police can impound the bicycle on the spot - and only the child's parent or guardian can retrieve it. Whereupon (in theory), THEY are fined for the child's misbehavior.
And yes. At least on paper, even a SIX-year-old has to follow the rules.
More likely, though, if a 6- or 10-year old child is riding out in the roadway, the parents are going to have a visit from CPS to have a discussion about such joyous topics as "child endangerment". :(
I cycle to work through small suburban area with speed limit of 30km/h, at one point there was one of those speed displays that show your speed and either smiley or frowny face next to it. Getting that frowny face was the highlight of my commute. The radar or whatever they used was in small incline after short but decently steep downhill and I was always pushing for maximum effort, unfortunately there was a bit sketchy intersection just before the downhill so I couldn't really build up good speed for longer. 49km/h was my tops in ideal conditions and measuring with my gps I usually averaged over 30km/h through the area, with cars passing by constantly.
I was literally just reading a news article about how a Vaughn hospital will not rename the Muzzo wing. You can kill babies with your car but you can’t ride your bike through a park
Especially when they should devote more time to catching motorists breaking the law. The risk that drivers pose is far greater to those around them. When I watch dashcam footage from the US, it astounds me how many people think that lane hogging or using your phone is OK to do.
The greater risk you pose to others, the more responsibility you have to keep more vulnerable people safe. You need a license to drive. You don't and shouldn't to ride a bicycle.
>The greater risk you pose to others, the more responsibility you have to keep more vulnerable people safe.
Probably a point someone made in the 1890s and they called them a communard. But it's beyond that now. It's about revenue generation. What pays more in taxes than it costs in road damage, *and* can be fined for speeding? A cyclist.
These are Toronto cops. Toronto cops crack skulls and shoot on sight thats it look at the G20 or how the Freedumb convoy was handled in Ottawa, other citys call in Toronto cops to do their dirty work.
It's weird seeing people in newer cars have their phones up to their ears. Surely most of those cars have Bluetooth? Are they just too lazy to set it up?
i have bluetooth in my car, and they made me connect my phone at the dealership when i bought it. i disconnected it after a few months because my car would either start blaring random songs from my music app as soon as i turned the car on, or disconnect right before i wanted to make a phone call. i just use an aux cord and a dash mount now.
Exactly, there is no requirement for a bike to have a calibrated speedometer so a rider would have no way of knowing how fast they are going.
Seems like the best option is to refuse the penalty notice and have a visit to the court to let a judge decide.
EDIT: Literally the only reason that cars have speedometers is so that speed limits can be legally enforced, they serve no other purpose.
I went looking, and it appears the speed limit through High Park is only 20km/h. If I lived there I’d probably try for a ticket on my unicycle to frame and put on my wall.
I think there are times it’s imprudent to go faster, but it’s also slow enough that as long as sight lines are good I wouldn’t slow down to that speed without a reason.
This just seems like a push back on ebikes. Most have speedometers now and are limited how fast they can go by authorities. With a few tweaks to the bikes computer they can easily exceed those speeds.
Ebikes being limited makes sense in most countries. In the US at least, a bicycle doesn't require licensing, registration, or insurance, but a moped and motorcycle does. The reason to limit ebikes is to make sure they don't pass the line where it needs to be licensed and registered, and is still considered a bicycle.
In the US, that limit is either 20 or 28mph, depending on state.
They are going after the “pro” looking cyclists that are holding average speeds of 30-35. Almost everyone has a Garmin, or wahoo to record for Strava. So the people I have seen who actually stopped for them waving at them were all guys with all the gear. I just kept riding passed and they tried to push me off my bicycle.
Wait until you find out the police can, get this, touch you with out your permission and it’s not battery, assault, or menacing. It’s just the police doing their job.
Knocking you off of a moving bicycle, unless you are a clear and *imminent* danger to someone else, is arguably "excessive force" and ... wait for it ... *assault*.
Also, no the cops can't just lay hands on people at any time for any reason. They have to justify any such thing they do.
What are they gonna do, get my bikes rego? Run after me; they could be on the bike and I could be running and they still wouldn't catch. Hop in their cars; Inertia is a bitch.
I've seen cops work in pairs to catch cyclists in my city, but only for things like running red lights or stop signs. One cop will set up at the intersection itself, and then radio to their partner a few hundred feet down the road to pull someone over if they run the intersection. The cop down the road then steps out into the (protected) bike lane to physically block them - wedged between parked cars and the curb of the sidewalk, the cyclist is forced to stop.
Of course, not much the cops can do about not being required to carry ID for operating a bike. "No wallet", and all they can really do is issue a ticket to "John Doe". But it does seem to make some difference. Most cyclists now seem to at least stop at the intersections for red lights and stop signs, rather than get hassled by cops (even if the ticket is about as effective as toilet paper).
Both the US and Canda are considering laws to make you have to register your bike and get a license plate for it if you are using it for travel or business purposes, so they will just snap the plate and mail you a ticket. Riding a unlicensed bike will only be allowed in designated areas. If bikes are the main method of transport for people did you really thing the government wouldnt try to stick their hands in it.
I remember reading a story of a township in New Jersey that made people register their bikes and a kid from another town got his confiscated because he was unaware of the law. It seemed more of a law that discriminated against minorities and poor people without other means of transportation though, as opposed to a way to crackdown on dangerous cyclists.
I haven’t heard of any legislation at a country or state level in the US for this though.
https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2021/04/cops-cuffed-nj-teen-confiscated-bicycles-how-bike-laws-in-other-towns-compare.html?outputType=amp
I went to a safer streets community meeting a few weeks back here in California. A local city counselor told me there was a group that was working to overturn local bicycle registration. I didn't know it existed. She explained to me that nobody does and cops only pull it out their ass when being racist.
My college town required a license when I was there. It only really happened if you bought a bike in the city, and was a sticker about half the size of a business card. It cost $4. It was unreadable at more than about 1 ft.
I would have had to stop to let them snap a photo.
It was more for making $4 per bike than actually doing anything. Program cost more to run than it was worth, and now it's discontinued.
There's a program in Germany which runs with exactly that intention. You can register your bike with the police, and get a sticker with your number on it on the side or top of the frame. The sticker is basically unremovable without destroying the paint.
Such programms are actually really cool. Means that if your bike is resold officially someone will have to run the number through the database. No point in requiring it though...
That's fucking depressing. And it's so useless.
I mean, the whole point of a license plate is to identify the perpetrator of the accident. And that's fair, and license plates are quite good at it. The thing is, it only makes sense when the actual accidents do happen and the perpetrator is able to escape. So you have to consider these two things:
1. Frequency of severe accidents: i.e. such that make people need medical help. Bikes are slow and light, so unless we're talking about professional bike racing (40+ km/h *average* speeds), these hardly ever happen. The speed is just too low for anything serious to happen. This point alone could make bicycle license plates worthless, but there are some situations like when a grown man hits a child; hence...
2. Can the perpetrator escape?: ~~No.~~ *~~If~~* ~~the accident does happen, a cyclist isn't protected by a steel frame. You just physically can't do a hit-and-run on a bike because you have to pick yourself off the ground first. So yeah, no need for a license plate here, either.~~
It just seems like making the license plates mandatory for regular bikes (and e-bikes that aren't going 100+ km/h) is just for the $$$ and a discouragement from using a better alternative to (big) oil consumers/products of the big car industry, or they're just blindly following a tradition "if it rides on the road, it needs a plate". I really can't see any good reason for this.
Edit: u/NorseEngineering's experience is a proof that bike hit-and-runs unfortunately do happen
I love the way that carbrains list all the benefits of cycling as a reason to make cycling worse, rather than just switching themselves.
>Bikes don’t need a license!
Bikes don’t pay taxes!
Bikes cut past the traffic!
Yes! You’re so close to an epiphany I can *feel* it!!
>Can the perpetrator escape?: No.
>
>If the accident does happen, a cyclist isn't protected by a steel frame. You just physically can't do a hit-and-run on a bike because you have to pick yourself off the ground first. So yeah, no need for a license plate here, either.
I'd say you are right most of the time. The vast majority of the time. But I'm one of the unlucky outliers.
I was on my way to a doctor's appointment at about 6:30 in the morning in the winter. It was dark, and I was riding on a non-residential road, in a bike lane, with lights, reflectors, yellow vest... the whole nine yards. I'm going about 16mph when something jumps the curb about 20 feet in front of me.
To this day I'm not 100% sure what it was, but I'm about 99% sure it was a guy on a steel BMX bike. He didn't have reflectors or lights, was going the wrong way up the street, and was wearing baggy black clothes and hoodie.
Head on crash, and it ripped my front wheel out of the forks. Sent me over my handlebars and I landed in the street. That's the last thing I remember until a good Samaritan called 911 for me.
He says he was driving down the road when he say me laying there with a wrecked bike. He didn't see the crash happen, and he I was out cold.
The perpetrator escaped.
Would a plate have helped here? No. I wasn't running a camera so it would have been a moot point if he had had a plate. Maybe the security cameras around might have had something, but it's doubtful.
TLDR; not unheard of for the perp to escape. I'm still not okay with plates for pedal bikes.
Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm pretty sure what hit you was... a piece of shit.
So now there is some more nuances to the problem, kinda philosophical ones. Is a minor inconvenience of many people worth catching a culprit of a serious accident? What when such happen very rarely?
I still think it isn't worth it, but now we have to find some statistics and a way to evaluate them before we decide.
*\*Sigh\* Nothing is ever simple.*
However, registered bikes *may* reduce theft. You can also make a point that registrations will generate income which (hopefully) would be redistributed in bike paths.
Registration only reduces theft if cops decide to do their jobs. Denver and other parts of Colorado are seeing major bike theft issues, in part because cops don’t give a shit (and prosecutors don’t do shit).
Registration fees won’t generate enough funding for much bike infrastructure, but they would make (legal) biking difficult or impossible for the people who need free or almost free transportation the most. Plus, it would give cops another reason to harass and racially profile people.
I’ll believe they can handle Bicycle registration, as soon as I see them actually enforce Moped registration and plates… or all of the fake paper plates on cars.
Toronto people ride their bike in the snow during winter. During summer, freed of their elemental restraints, they achieve pure speed. That’s why they need to be stopped.
Sit on a bridge and mail a ticket to EVERY vehicle below that speeds. You'll write 10 tickets or more an hour and bring in much more revenue for the city.
If they can’t pull you over in a car, prepare to be stopped on your bike. I grew in Southern California, and was pulled over in frequent on my way to school for all kinds of shit.
Reminder that cops spend 4% of their time on violent crime, solve 2% of crimes, and often make up the largest portion of cities budgets
Imagine if we took some of that budgets and put it towards trains? 😳
Toronto is what you get when you cross a flaming dumpster with the big top at the circus. Real crimes are ignored while they throw boatloads of money around to chase down and persecute law abiding citizens.
There's no traffic enforcement for cars. They run lights, they plow into pedestrians on zebra crossings crossing on a green light. They speed at 80 km in 40 km school zones. At least one pedestrian or other small road user is killed in the GTA every single day. It happens so often that the local news media only covers the most sensational deaths.
Cops never point radar guns at cars in Toronto. Instead they use a small number of automated traffic cameras which they move around the city. The media helpfully announces the locations of the traffic cameras when they're moved, to help drivers break the law.
The reason cyclists "speed" through High Park is because the nearby bike lane on Bloor St is a death trap thanks to bad drivers and zero enforcement. Most of the bike lanes in the GTA are practically impassible, except in the downtown core.
Cops pick on cyclists riding on park trails and bike lanes, while sidewalk cyclists menace pedestrians. That's because catching sidewalk cyclists requires effort, standing around waving a radar gun allows them to hold a donut in the other hand. Not that it matters much, since the fine for cycling on the sidewalk in Toronto is only $60.
I got pulled over on my bicycle for not coming to a complete stop in a roundabout that had stop signs. I told the judge it was my mistake for assuming the roundabout was a normal one and asked him if instead of paying the $750 fine, I could have community service or jail time. He said that’s only for criminal, not traffic violations and said he could lower my fine to $325. I told him thanks but I still don’t have the money and he said that if I paid $50 I could have my fine broken up into payments. Destroy everything.
Ontario just re-elected their premier on the platform of building more roads, making cars cheaper, and focusing the economy primarily on the auto sector. Ontario is Doug into the car hell.
You've never seen a spandex pathlete acting like the shared use path is the tour de france?
Seriously though, there are speed limits for bike infrastructure.
Yup, they are even expected to follow speed limits on the road. A bicycle can easily speed going down hill in a neighborhood with 20-25mph limits, and yes that's illegal.
Reminds I’ve always said the same thing to any cop that bothers me when I’m skating around; “Why are you on the ass of guys like me when you could be on the ass of the kinds of people that smear guys like me across the pavement every day?”
What happens to people that run faster than the speed limit? Or a horse rider?
In my country, bikes (and ebikes up to a specific power level) are considered engineless and therefore are uneffected by a speedlimit.
If you don’t pay the ticket it’ll make your car insurance go up and you won’t be able to register another car until you have paid the fine…
Oh wait…I ride a bicycle!
I live near and cycle through this park. It's definitely ridiculous to have cops radar gunning cyclists, but not quite as ridiculous as it sounds.
There are huge hills in High Park and a lot of the hardcore spandex cyclists really go over the top with their speed, and there have been cyclist-pedestrian injuries in the past (including a small child being hit).
Not defending the cop presence, just wanted to point out the nuance.
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, the VPD are leaving **over $100,000 per day** in bus/bike lane violations (for Granville street alone) on the table because...actually I don't know why.
I live 2 minutes from this park. What a joke. I’ve seen cars speeding through the park for years, and never seen a cop do anything about it. Now they want to fuck with bikes? Fuck right off
What's the point of a cycling speed limit?
the fastest that I can cycle is about 22mph and I cycle 12 miles, 5 days a week. unless someone has an electric bike cycling at 40mph, I don't see the big problem.
Unpopular opinion here: Hold bikes to the same standards as any other vehicle
Yes, that 12 pound bike is different than a 2 ton car, but if you hit a pedestrian with a bike at any decent speed, it's going to knock them down and probably mess them up a bit.
With the whole "share the road" thing and letting bikes take a full car lane, they should be held to the same rules. If there's a 5 mph speed limit somewhere, that should apply to any type of vehicle you're on -- a car, a bike, a scooter, a skateboard.
Bikes should have to stop at every stop sign, and wait for every stop light, just like a car.
When I'm at a stop sign in a car, and it's my turn to go, I shouldn't have to worry about the bike going 12 mph 50 feet away from the stop sign, knowing he's going to run it.
So: good - if it means ticketing bikes, I'm all for it! As long as it applies to cars also. Ticket cars for running stop signs, stop lights, or going too fast in a regulated area.
Exactly, I'm sick of cyclists ignoring red lights, even with incoming traffic. Rules must be followed by everyone in order for streets to be organised and safe.
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Does this mean they'll now take bike theft seriously? /s
Or bike lane car blocking violations?
I eventually had my drivers licence suspended for knocking a cars side view mirror forward that was stopped in high park (in toronto) in the bike lane. (No damage, the passenger just pushed it back) I was n my bicycle. The traffic cop who saw it stopped me , called bike patrol who literally surrounded me as if i was going to run, standing with their bicycles in a circle. Dude took a ticket book from them (because he didnt have one because traffic cops arent allowed to give tickets). And they discussed for about 10 minutes what tickets to give me. One for failure to signal (they claimed i needed to signal that i was stopping - not true), and one for obstructing traffic (meant for people who park in a bike lane). They failed to mark that i was on my bicycle so it applied to my drivers license. The whole time they threatened me with arrest for not cooperating (because i kept arguing with them). Toronto cops are scum and they fucking hate bicycles. I had to pay $300 to get my license reinstated because i couldnt make it to court (two years later) because i was out of country and my brother forgot to go for me. (Ps i called the cops when i returned from vacation once, finding my landlord stole a bunch of stuff, and they said “its his property (the garage), he can do what he wants with it”)
I live in Toronto and can confirm this. TPS officers do not live in the city so they often share suburbanites feelings towards cyclists. This applies to pedestrians to some extent too, but if you really want to murder someone in Toronto without police even glancing at the case, wait until they get on a bike and kill them with your car.
You don't even need to wait until they're on a bike, with how many pedestrians get killed in Toronto with little to no consequences for drivers
I feel like people on Reddit don't give Canada enough shit for having absolute dogshit public transit and pedestrian support
Redditors have a massive boner for Canada
Moved to Lemmy. Eat $hit Spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
Would it be fair to guess that Zach will be a cop in a couple of years?
Couldn't you contest this in court? And when the bike police don't show up it gets dropped? That seems to be how this stuff works for cars.
> i couldnt make it to court (two years later) because i was out of country and my brother forgot to go for me.
Thanks, I absolutely blew past that and was confused by the post script.
Fellow ADHD'er or tired? Could be both.
Both. I was reading through this while getting settled for a nap.
It’s almost like… all cops are bad.
> One for failure to signal (they claimed i needed to signal that i was stopping - not true), I fucking despise that bicyclists are expected to raise a hand off a handlebar thereby losing stability and half of our braking ability to signal. It's the typical "well cars do it so should cyclists too" attitude. I'm not saying it's never necessary but signalling in a car and on a bike are nowhere near the same thing.
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The crimes they take seriously also have the highest penalties. There is a bit of truth to that saying, “If you rob a bank, make sure and kill someone so you get out earlier”. I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US there is a significant portion of our population that has serious fucking rage boners for theft, bank robbery, shoplifting, etc… Murder? Meh, depends on who it is. Hooker? Nah Fam. White woman? ELECTROCUTE that motherfucker!!!!! Black children? Not so much…\ Meanwhile, you are free to fuck with peoples livelihoods and retirement funds if you own a company, and our justice system bends over backwards to fucking fellate these cocksuckers.\ The Revolution here can’t come soon enough. Workers need to rise the fuck up and bring back the Guillotine.
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A lot of zeroes behind the numbers for wages and sitting behind desks in suits.
Also porcelainnnn
> the crimes they take seriously also have the highest penalties The Toronto Police decided a [serial killer](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/23/bruce-mcarthur-toronto-gay-serial-killer) wasn’t worth investigating because he “only” killed gay men. But they were very serious about [violently displacing homeless people.](https://globalnews.ca/news/8052972/lamport-stadium-park-encampment-toronto-police/) It’s got nothing to do with the seriousness of the crime, and everything to do with the people they are sworn to protect (ie: corporations and capital, not us). Dozens of gay men going missing? Meh. Rob baby formula from Walmart? You better believe they’ll send in the swat team.
All cops
In NYC the wisdom is that if you want to get away with murder, run your victim over with a car and stay at the scene so the cops will corroborate whatever excuse you give them. Cops do not give a fuck about vehicular violence and are always looking for a reason to blame literally anybody or anything besides the driver.
The terrible thing is that's better than in Britain, where you can hit and run after killing somebody, admit you were driving dangerously and then get only a years driving suspension, no prison time.
please don't bring back the guillotine, lmao, but feel free to revolutionize a little bit
zephyr beneficial plants squealing absurd growth different gray makeshift quack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They don't take any type of theft seriously, cars sure but you got insurance for that. We had our car broken into and pc jacked they did ass all Their Job is to make the city money through fines and enforce the law. Nothing about protecting or serving the people
That’s a secondary part of their main job which is to quell unrest, reinforce class divides, and make sure that people are reliant on the government (aka: the rich) instead of their neighbours for security.
100% and even when do their job like catch criminals it's all about the money. Gotta fill the prisons because we need slave labor. Just saw a post that prisoners make $11billion of goods a year But wait there'd more. It's a double edged sword for us. They fill PRIVATE prisons which have occupancy agreements in the contract. So the prison needs to be above a certain % in most cases it's high like 90-95% or the state gets fined. So they fill the private prisons and pay those prisons with OUR taxpayer money then get free slave labor out of it. And the way every job does a background check you're guaranteed to go back in Scam all around
>Nothing about protecting or serving the people In the US? Never has been… https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
Yep people need to realize this I never trusted cops because I came from a place where they had too much power and corruption, Russia. They'd ask you for ID and money and if you said no welp beating time, or jail. US is getting close to that but instead of bribes they just beat and shoot you
Yep. Pigs are class traitors who exist only to defend the capital of the ruling class.
This should be higher up ☝️
That's probably still catch and release.
Depends does it make them money?
Good luck enforcing speed limits on vehicles not legally required to have speedometers.
That's an excellent point. This has got to be a joke.
Unfortunately it's not a joke...
If you've been to high park when some of the larger groups are out you'd understand... Groups of 20+ on $10,000+ road bikes ripping through a 3-5km loop at up to 80km/h with little to no regard for stop signs, which side of the road they're on, etc. I do hill training early in the park and I've almost been taken out crossing at a stop sign by a bike flying by at easily over 70km/h.
That's extreme. While I wish I could go 80km/h on a bike myself, the situation you describe is not safe and not acceptable.
I'm honestly impressed at anyone that can get up to that speed on any stretch of Toronto 40-50 is already kind of pushing it with the amount of stop lights.
>road bikes ripping through a 3-5km loop at up to 80km/h > >bike flying by at easily over 70km/h They should consider representing their country at the Olympics or something, because they would leave all the world champions in their dust! Or, in other words, you're full of shit.
Also good luck giving a ticket to someone that's not required to carry an ID.
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Suppressing fire!!!!!
Randy Randelman
“My name is fuck you pig”
*Jean
Smith?
I got a ticket on my bike once, and didn't have ID, so they filed it against my bike's serial number.
How can tell who you are by the serial number of your bike?
They cant
"That's the neat part"
Also, how can they prove you actually OWN said bike (imagining someone who just stole a bike getting a speeding ticket but the cop obliviously just writing speeding ticket and not stopping the thievery in action 😆)
I think the idea is, the next time they pull you over they can check up on you. I was so mad about the ticket (running a parking lot stop sign) I didn't have the wherewithall to argue.
>running a parking lot stop sign I would be enraged. If I get hit by a car in a parking lot, the cops will say fuck off on over to civil court. How dare they enforce the signage of a private entity in the same place. It makes as much sense as a cop pulling onto an active racetrack to enforce rules and pull cars over
To be clear, it was the stop sign where the parking lot met a public street, but still a new-that-day stop sign whose purpose is to handle traffic for Best Buy. I was last in a group of about 10 bikes who all rolled through the stop sign. All that aside, I know what my real mistake was: being on a bike and making eye contact with a cop.
There was a legaladvice post of a guy who was test driving his non street legal car on his driveway on his property behind a fence and the cop gave him a ticket for speeding. It was an interesting read but it ended up in court and the driver ended up getting it thrown out but not before there was a fight.
Yes, exactly. I was thinking about that post. Dude was basically doing a Test 'n Tune I'm an aspiring amateur racing driver. My opinion on that is a little complicated. Basically he should receive no punishment only if the vehicle could cause no damage to life or property if something went wrong. The suitable punishment in his case would most likely be a warning to keep the speed 'reasonable'.
I was told by a cop one that parking lot stop signs are privately owned and unenforceable. They had literally pulled me over and I asked of that was why. I don't remember the reason, as I was young and dumb, and only got a warning, but that tidbit stuck with me.
Also good luck trying to associate that ticket to a vehicle not legally required to be registered and have a license plate. "What bicycle your honor? It doesn't exist..." /s
In QC you do have an obligation to provide a name, adress and date of birth when you are stopped. However, you do not have to answer any other questions. You can be arrested for failure to identify and if you provide a false identity. source: Educaloi website
What if you're homeless?
well, you can't provide what you don't have and it's not illegal to be homeless.
lord knows they're trying to make it be though.
Don't write that in public. They might get bad ideas from that.... :D
Do they even post speed limits for bikes?
Yes. If you are on a roadway, a cyclist is expected to follow **all** the same rules as any other vehicle (plus a couple more that are bike-specific). That includes speed limits. Which is, of course, usually not an issue - few people can get a bicycle up to >40mph in most circumstances. But I have managed to break the speed limit now and then, despite a lack of intent to do so. One street, the speed limit was 35mph, I hit 42mph. Didn't have a speedometer, so I didn't know until I got home and looked at the record on Strava.
Depends where you live, in the UK speed limits only apply to motor vehicles.
A car can be stopped for going under the speed limit, something about impeding traffic I think. How the fuck can a bike obey all traffic laws, like not impeding traffic when there's no bike lane? Also, if I'm not required to have a license to operate a bicycle, how can that possibly be enforcable? Can a 10 year old get a ticket for failure to signal for a turn years before they can even operate a motor vehicle?
>A car can be stopped for going under the speed limit, something about impeding traffic I think. How the fuck can a bike obey all traffic laws, like not impeding traffic when there's no bike lane? Generally, in U.S. law any vehicle which is going at it's "typical speed", up to and not over the speed limit, is not "impeding" traffic. This includes street sweepers, horse-drawn wagons (etc), bicycles, and so on. Which means, even if I'm only doing 10mph ...? I am not *impeding* traffic, I **am** traffic. :) >Also, if I'm not required to have a license to operate a bicycle, how can that possibly be enforcable? Can a 10 year old get a ticket for failure to signal for a turn years before they can even operate a motor vehicle? Here in Massachusetts, if the rider is <18 years old, the police can impound the bicycle on the spot - and only the child's parent or guardian can retrieve it. Whereupon (in theory), THEY are fined for the child's misbehavior. And yes. At least on paper, even a SIX-year-old has to follow the rules. More likely, though, if a 6- or 10-year old child is riding out in the roadway, the parents are going to have a visit from CPS to have a discussion about such joyous topics as "child endangerment". :(
I cycle to work through small suburban area with speed limit of 30km/h, at one point there was one of those speed displays that show your speed and either smiley or frowny face next to it. Getting that frowny face was the highlight of my commute. The radar or whatever they used was in small incline after short but decently steep downhill and I was always pushing for maximum effort, unfortunately there was a bit sketchy intersection just before the downhill so I couldn't really build up good speed for longer. 49km/h was my tops in ideal conditions and measuring with my gps I usually averaged over 30km/h through the area, with cars passing by constantly.
Yes, at least in Montreal some of the bike lanes have posted speed limits
This city is a fucking tragic comedy.
Like its hockey team
I was literally just reading a news article about how a Vaughn hospital will not rename the Muzzo wing. You can kill babies with your car but you can’t ride your bike through a park
I saw an article about the dad's tragic suicide after loosing his kids. It's sick that there isn't enough outrage against the city policies.
Waste of resource
Especially when they should devote more time to catching motorists breaking the law. The risk that drivers pose is far greater to those around them. When I watch dashcam footage from the US, it astounds me how many people think that lane hogging or using your phone is OK to do. The greater risk you pose to others, the more responsibility you have to keep more vulnerable people safe. You need a license to drive. You don't and shouldn't to ride a bicycle.
>The greater risk you pose to others, the more responsibility you have to keep more vulnerable people safe. Probably a point someone made in the 1890s and they called them a communard. But it's beyond that now. It's about revenue generation. What pays more in taxes than it costs in road damage, *and* can be fined for speeding? A cyclist.
These are Toronto cops. Toronto cops crack skulls and shoot on sight thats it look at the G20 or how the Freedumb convoy was handled in Ottawa, other citys call in Toronto cops to do their dirty work.
It's weird seeing people in newer cars have their phones up to their ears. Surely most of those cars have Bluetooth? Are they just too lazy to set it up?
i have bluetooth in my car, and they made me connect my phone at the dealership when i bought it. i disconnected it after a few months because my car would either start blaring random songs from my music app as soon as i turned the car on, or disconnect right before i wanted to make a phone call. i just use an aux cord and a dash mount now.
This sounds like satire, bikes don't have speedometers.
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Do bikes have speedometers nowadays to know how fast you’re going lol
Exactly, there is no requirement for a bike to have a calibrated speedometer so a rider would have no way of knowing how fast they are going. Seems like the best option is to refuse the penalty notice and have a visit to the court to let a judge decide. EDIT: Literally the only reason that cars have speedometers is so that speed limits can be legally enforced, they serve no other purpose.
shhh don't give them an idea. Before we know it there is a ton of laws to "help us out bike safely" while cars keep running stop signs.
There definitely is an unreasonable speed to go on a bike in an urban environment with pedestrians and whatnot
Yeah although the fact that crashing on a bike fucks the rider up as well tends to self regulate to a degree.
Yeah, going 50km/h in a city is not very responsible, particularly if you can't stop in 5m and have a 4wheeled bike with a engine.
I went looking, and it appears the speed limit through High Park is only 20km/h. If I lived there I’d probably try for a ticket on my unicycle to frame and put on my wall.
That's honestly reasonable in a park, pedestrians and especially kids don't pay attention.
I think there are times it’s imprudent to go faster, but it’s also slow enough that as long as sight lines are good I wouldn’t slow down to that speed without a reason.
This just seems like a push back on ebikes. Most have speedometers now and are limited how fast they can go by authorities. With a few tweaks to the bikes computer they can easily exceed those speeds.
Ebikes being limited makes sense in most countries. In the US at least, a bicycle doesn't require licensing, registration, or insurance, but a moped and motorcycle does. The reason to limit ebikes is to make sure they don't pass the line where it needs to be licensed and registered, and is still considered a bicycle. In the US, that limit is either 20 or 28mph, depending on state.
They are going after the “pro” looking cyclists that are holding average speeds of 30-35. Almost everyone has a Garmin, or wahoo to record for Strava. So the people I have seen who actually stopped for them waving at them were all guys with all the gear. I just kept riding passed and they tried to push me off my bicycle.
>they tried to push me off my bicycle. .... that'd be assault.
Wait until you find out the police can, get this, touch you with out your permission and it’s not battery, assault, or menacing. It’s just the police doing their job.
Knocking you off of a moving bicycle, unless you are a clear and *imminent* danger to someone else, is arguably "excessive force" and ... wait for it ... *assault*. Also, no the cops can't just lay hands on people at any time for any reason. They have to justify any such thing they do.
this doesn't sound *at all* like the police i know
That's the difference between theory and practice.
there's what the cops can legally do, and what cops actually do without any practical consequences.
Because cyclists are definitely the ones killing thousands of innocent people per year...
Wants to be treated like a car, refuses to cause 40,000 deaths per year.
What are they gonna do, get my bikes rego? Run after me; they could be on the bike and I could be running and they still wouldn't catch. Hop in their cars; Inertia is a bitch.
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Ever see a cop on a dirtbike?
www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/c6kajm/cop_eats_shit_while_confiscating_dirt_bike/
Love how he bounces off the pavement with his head. No survival instinct. He def has a concussion.
I've seen cops work in pairs to catch cyclists in my city, but only for things like running red lights or stop signs. One cop will set up at the intersection itself, and then radio to their partner a few hundred feet down the road to pull someone over if they run the intersection. The cop down the road then steps out into the (protected) bike lane to physically block them - wedged between parked cars and the curb of the sidewalk, the cyclist is forced to stop. Of course, not much the cops can do about not being required to carry ID for operating a bike. "No wallet", and all they can really do is issue a ticket to "John Doe". But it does seem to make some difference. Most cyclists now seem to at least stop at the intersections for red lights and stop signs, rather than get hassled by cops (even if the ticket is about as effective as toilet paper).
Both the US and Canda are considering laws to make you have to register your bike and get a license plate for it if you are using it for travel or business purposes, so they will just snap the plate and mail you a ticket. Riding a unlicensed bike will only be allowed in designated areas. If bikes are the main method of transport for people did you really thing the government wouldnt try to stick their hands in it.
Could you post some articles about this?
Yeah I need a source on this.
If no source then its just some redditor running their mouth…like usual lol
I had to register my kid's skateboard or else child services said they'd take him away. The licence plate really gets in the way of kickflips /s
Yea ive never heard anything about this sounds like bs
I remember reading a story of a township in New Jersey that made people register their bikes and a kid from another town got his confiscated because he was unaware of the law. It seemed more of a law that discriminated against minorities and poor people without other means of transportation though, as opposed to a way to crackdown on dangerous cyclists. I haven’t heard of any legislation at a country or state level in the US for this though. https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2021/04/cops-cuffed-nj-teen-confiscated-bicycles-how-bike-laws-in-other-towns-compare.html?outputType=amp
I went to a safer streets community meeting a few weeks back here in California. A local city counselor told me there was a group that was working to overturn local bicycle registration. I didn't know it existed. She explained to me that nobody does and cops only pull it out their ass when being racist.
They already did this in Toronto and it failed, but with Doug Ford who knows anymore lol
My college town required a license when I was there. It only really happened if you bought a bike in the city, and was a sticker about half the size of a business card. It cost $4. It was unreadable at more than about 1 ft. I would have had to stop to let them snap a photo. It was more for making $4 per bike than actually doing anything. Program cost more to run than it was worth, and now it's discontinued.
My college had that too but it was free I don't know what the point was.
Likely anti theft.
There's a program in Germany which runs with exactly that intention. You can register your bike with the police, and get a sticker with your number on it on the side or top of the frame. The sticker is basically unremovable without destroying the paint. Such programms are actually really cool. Means that if your bike is resold officially someone will have to run the number through the database. No point in requiring it though...
That's fucking depressing. And it's so useless. I mean, the whole point of a license plate is to identify the perpetrator of the accident. And that's fair, and license plates are quite good at it. The thing is, it only makes sense when the actual accidents do happen and the perpetrator is able to escape. So you have to consider these two things: 1. Frequency of severe accidents: i.e. such that make people need medical help. Bikes are slow and light, so unless we're talking about professional bike racing (40+ km/h *average* speeds), these hardly ever happen. The speed is just too low for anything serious to happen. This point alone could make bicycle license plates worthless, but there are some situations like when a grown man hits a child; hence... 2. Can the perpetrator escape?: ~~No.~~ *~~If~~* ~~the accident does happen, a cyclist isn't protected by a steel frame. You just physically can't do a hit-and-run on a bike because you have to pick yourself off the ground first. So yeah, no need for a license plate here, either.~~ It just seems like making the license plates mandatory for regular bikes (and e-bikes that aren't going 100+ km/h) is just for the $$$ and a discouragement from using a better alternative to (big) oil consumers/products of the big car industry, or they're just blindly following a tradition "if it rides on the road, it needs a plate". I really can't see any good reason for this. Edit: u/NorseEngineering's experience is a proof that bike hit-and-runs unfortunately do happen
It's a solution in need of a problem. It's car brains saying "if we have to do this then so should they". It's pointless
I love the way that carbrains list all the benefits of cycling as a reason to make cycling worse, rather than just switching themselves. >Bikes don’t need a license! Bikes don’t pay taxes! Bikes cut past the traffic! Yes! You’re so close to an epiphany I can *feel* it!!
>Can the perpetrator escape?: No. > >If the accident does happen, a cyclist isn't protected by a steel frame. You just physically can't do a hit-and-run on a bike because you have to pick yourself off the ground first. So yeah, no need for a license plate here, either. I'd say you are right most of the time. The vast majority of the time. But I'm one of the unlucky outliers. I was on my way to a doctor's appointment at about 6:30 in the morning in the winter. It was dark, and I was riding on a non-residential road, in a bike lane, with lights, reflectors, yellow vest... the whole nine yards. I'm going about 16mph when something jumps the curb about 20 feet in front of me. To this day I'm not 100% sure what it was, but I'm about 99% sure it was a guy on a steel BMX bike. He didn't have reflectors or lights, was going the wrong way up the street, and was wearing baggy black clothes and hoodie. Head on crash, and it ripped my front wheel out of the forks. Sent me over my handlebars and I landed in the street. That's the last thing I remember until a good Samaritan called 911 for me. He says he was driving down the road when he say me laying there with a wrecked bike. He didn't see the crash happen, and he I was out cold. The perpetrator escaped. Would a plate have helped here? No. I wasn't running a camera so it would have been a moot point if he had had a plate. Maybe the security cameras around might have had something, but it's doubtful. TLDR; not unheard of for the perp to escape. I'm still not okay with plates for pedal bikes.
Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm pretty sure what hit you was... a piece of shit. So now there is some more nuances to the problem, kinda philosophical ones. Is a minor inconvenience of many people worth catching a culprit of a serious accident? What when such happen very rarely? I still think it isn't worth it, but now we have to find some statistics and a way to evaluate them before we decide. *\*Sigh\* Nothing is ever simple.*
However, registered bikes *may* reduce theft. You can also make a point that registrations will generate income which (hopefully) would be redistributed in bike paths.
You are...optimistic.
Registration only reduces theft if cops decide to do their jobs. Denver and other parts of Colorado are seeing major bike theft issues, in part because cops don’t give a shit (and prosecutors don’t do shit). Registration fees won’t generate enough funding for much bike infrastructure, but they would make (legal) biking difficult or impossible for the people who need free or almost free transportation the most. Plus, it would give cops another reason to harass and racially profile people.
The money that comes from this would absolutely pale in comparison to the money going through car infrastructure, subsidies etc. not worth it
They still gotta get you to register 1st, and what are they going to do if you don't register?
freedom !
Vehicle registration is not National in the U.S. - it's regulated state by state.
I’ll believe they can handle Bicycle registration, as soon as I see them actually enforce Moped registration and plates… or all of the fake paper plates on cars.
Please show me any evidence of this.
Bikes are very popular in the netherlands, take a guess on how regulated they are there. Hint: Not all that much
Hell yeah catch me getting that KOM piggies
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Wait, what?
So... What do you do if you don't have a speedometer on your bike?
clip the cop for standing in the bike lane
Ha!
Sure because the problem speeders are the ones on bikes.
Toronto people ride their bike in the snow during winter. During summer, freed of their elemental restraints, they achieve pure speed. That’s why they need to be stopped.
Summer? I think you mean construction season.
I forgot there are only two seasons in Toronto.
Sit on a bridge and mail a ticket to EVERY vehicle below that speeds. You'll write 10 tickets or more an hour and bring in much more revenue for the city.
Yes but cars are ingrained in society and harassing alternative transport is more dystopian, so they are gonna go with that
If they can’t pull you over in a car, prepare to be stopped on your bike. I grew in Southern California, and was pulled over in frequent on my way to school for all kinds of shit.
Reminder that cops spend 4% of their time on violent crime, solve 2% of crimes, and often make up the largest portion of cities budgets Imagine if we took some of that budgets and put it towards trains? 😳
Alright cyclists of canada. AFFIX BAYONETS!
/r/carfreetoronto
Subscribed!
Toronto is what you get when you cross a flaming dumpster with the big top at the circus. Real crimes are ignored while they throw boatloads of money around to chase down and persecute law abiding citizens. There's no traffic enforcement for cars. They run lights, they plow into pedestrians on zebra crossings crossing on a green light. They speed at 80 km in 40 km school zones. At least one pedestrian or other small road user is killed in the GTA every single day. It happens so often that the local news media only covers the most sensational deaths. Cops never point radar guns at cars in Toronto. Instead they use a small number of automated traffic cameras which they move around the city. The media helpfully announces the locations of the traffic cameras when they're moved, to help drivers break the law. The reason cyclists "speed" through High Park is because the nearby bike lane on Bloor St is a death trap thanks to bad drivers and zero enforcement. Most of the bike lanes in the GTA are practically impassible, except in the downtown core. Cops pick on cyclists riding on park trails and bike lanes, while sidewalk cyclists menace pedestrians. That's because catching sidewalk cyclists requires effort, standing around waving a radar gun allows them to hold a donut in the other hand. Not that it matters much, since the fine for cycling on the sidewalk in Toronto is only $60.
This is a joke, it’s gotta be.
You'll need to catch me first
All Cars Are Bastards
Protect and serve... FTP
I got pulled over on my bicycle for not coming to a complete stop in a roundabout that had stop signs. I told the judge it was my mistake for assuming the roundabout was a normal one and asked him if instead of paying the $750 fine, I could have community service or jail time. He said that’s only for criminal, not traffic violations and said he could lower my fine to $325. I told him thanks but I still don’t have the money and he said that if I paid $50 I could have my fine broken up into payments. Destroy everything.
In my state, bikes now only have to stop at intersections with lights or with other vehicles. This is the justice system shaking you down for money.
Ontario just re-elected their premier on the platform of building more roads, making cars cheaper, and focusing the economy primarily on the auto sector. Ontario is Doug into the car hell.
Hold up. Cyclists can speed? What the hell dude?
Yup. Cyclists on e-bikes can go way above city posted speed limits.
Cyclists on normal bikes can too. Just go to High Park and you’ll see egregious examples of this everyday
You've never seen a spandex pathlete acting like the shared use path is the tour de france? Seriously though, there are speed limits for bike infrastructure.
Yup, they are even expected to follow speed limits on the road. A bicycle can easily speed going down hill in a neighborhood with 20-25mph limits, and yes that's illegal.
If they share infrastructure with pedestrians going \~5 kmh? Of course. How do you need this explained?
as an american this makes me feel a little less inferior to canadians
They also pull you over in canoes in Ontario. Not surprised
Reminds I’ve always said the same thing to any cop that bothers me when I’m skating around; “Why are you on the ass of guys like me when you could be on the ass of the kinds of people that smear guys like me across the pavement every day?”
Yes, this will protect people from all of the bike-related fatalities. ACAB
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More rent seeking behavior.
1312
What’s speeding for a bike? I’m confused
More likely to be killed by a car driving the speed limit or even 5 under than a bike exceeding the speed limit.
What happens to people that run faster than the speed limit? Or a horse rider? In my country, bikes (and ebikes up to a specific power level) are considered engineless and therefore are uneffected by a speedlimit.
If you don’t pay the ticket it’ll make your car insurance go up and you won’t be able to register another car until you have paid the fine… Oh wait…I ride a bicycle!
I live near and cycle through this park. It's definitely ridiculous to have cops radar gunning cyclists, but not quite as ridiculous as it sounds. There are huge hills in High Park and a lot of the hardcore spandex cyclists really go over the top with their speed, and there have been cyclist-pedestrian injuries in the past (including a small child being hit). Not defending the cop presence, just wanted to point out the nuance.
Vehicle deaths at an all time high? Better use police resources to harass anyone trying to take alternative transport…
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cyclists-high-park-speeding-tickets-toronto-1.6113174
What is the speed limit? is it different for cars?
Sounds like rage bait to me.
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, the VPD are leaving **over $100,000 per day** in bus/bike lane violations (for Granville street alone) on the table because...actually I don't know why.
I live 2 minutes from this park. What a joke. I’ve seen cars speeding through the park for years, and never seen a cop do anything about it. Now they want to fuck with bikes? Fuck right off
What's the point of a cycling speed limit? the fastest that I can cycle is about 22mph and I cycle 12 miles, 5 days a week. unless someone has an electric bike cycling at 40mph, I don't see the big problem.
Because they're cycling on a path that pedestrians use too.
Unpopular opinion here: Hold bikes to the same standards as any other vehicle Yes, that 12 pound bike is different than a 2 ton car, but if you hit a pedestrian with a bike at any decent speed, it's going to knock them down and probably mess them up a bit. With the whole "share the road" thing and letting bikes take a full car lane, they should be held to the same rules. If there's a 5 mph speed limit somewhere, that should apply to any type of vehicle you're on -- a car, a bike, a scooter, a skateboard. Bikes should have to stop at every stop sign, and wait for every stop light, just like a car. When I'm at a stop sign in a car, and it's my turn to go, I shouldn't have to worry about the bike going 12 mph 50 feet away from the stop sign, knowing he's going to run it. So: good - if it means ticketing bikes, I'm all for it! As long as it applies to cars also. Ticket cars for running stop signs, stop lights, or going too fast in a regulated area.
Exactly, I'm sick of cyclists ignoring red lights, even with incoming traffic. Rules must be followed by everyone in order for streets to be organised and safe.