Lessons Learned from Fighting a Wrongful CVC 21202(a) Citation
The post below originally appeared on Andrew Woolley's blog. Andrew lives, works and rides in San Diego, CA.
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In March 2009 I was cited for violating CVC 21202(a). The Police Officer understood that code as mandating that bicycles always operate as far to the right as possible. You can read the Court Transcripts, My Appellant’s Opening Brief, and the City Attorney's Respondent’s Brief. I was found GUILTY in court, but was able to convince the City Attorney that I was not in violation, and they agreed that the trial decision should be overturned. It may be several more months before the Appellate Judges actually issue a decision, but with the City Attorney’s endorsement, they will overturn the traffic court decision.
1) Make sure you know the vehicle code pertaining to bicycles, verbatim, and don’t violate it. If you aren’t operating in conjunction with the law, you don’t have a leg to stand on and you make all cyclists look bad.
2) If you are pulled over, and it is apparent that the law enforcement officer does not understand the law, do your best to not argue the point. Road-side “educating” will, most likely, not end in a handshake and a heartfelt “take care.” It will end in a ticket. Avoid the ticket and ensuing court battle by keeping your mouth shut, taking the “lesson” the officer is teaching you, and moving on. Make sure you get the officer’s name for the next step. . .
3) Correct improper law enforcement by contacting the officer’s superior after the incident. This gives you a chance to review the pertaining section of the vehicle code to ensure you are 100% correct, gather your thoughts and your argument, and present both in a much more clear and less emotional manner. You are calling the superior because you are concerned for cyclists’ safety and police misunderstanding, not as a personal vendetta.
4) Contact your City Council member and inform them that their efforts to educate law enforcement are inadequate.
5) If you do find yourself with an unjust citation you have 3 options:
- Pay the fine
- Contest the citation via mail-in argument. This gives you a good opportunity to write out a well-argued position, and really remove emotion from the discussion.
- Take the matter to court. Be aware that going to traffic court requires a visit to the courthouse prior to the actual trial, as you will have to appear before a judge to enter your Not Guilty plea, and set a date for the actual trial.
6) If you have decided to take the matter to trial, arrive PREPARED! Contact the SDCBC and attain expert witness (certified cycling safety instructor) to testify on your behalf. Do not assume that facts and logic will prevail. Assume, rather, that you are responsible for proving not only that you weren’t violating the vehicle code, but are responsible for showing why the vehicle code was written the way it is. You have to assume that the judge and police officer are anti-bicycle and don’t like bicycles in the traffic lanes. You have to prove not only that you are allowed in the lane, but WHY you are allowed in the lane. Bring cycling safety instructions. Bring expert witnesses. Be Prepared!
7) If you are found in violation in court, contact SDCBC and appeal! The appeals process is not simple, but it isn’t impossible to navigate on your own. Legal assistance would be very helpful during the process. It can be time consuming, confusing, and difficult, but the results may prove well worth the effort; not just for you personally, but for all cyclists in California.
8) Contact the San Diego City Council and tell them what you’ve been through because of their inability to educate law enforcement.
PLEASE feel free to contact me at aj[dot]woolley03[at]gmail[dot]com if you have any questions about how to proceed in any situation. I’m not an expert, but I’ve been through the whole process and can certainly lend a hand or give advice on how to proceed. I am not a lawyer, just a guy who’s been through the ringer on this one. Avoid my pain.
The Case of Officer David Root and Andrew Woolley
I had the opportunity to sit down with Andrew Woolley late last Friday to talk about his recent win. We had a long discussion about the win and about what he had learned.
One of the reasons Woolley admitted to being surprised about the outcome of the initial trial was due to a conversation he had with the supervisor of Officer David Root, who ticketed Woolley. After being ticketed, Woolley contacted Root's supervisor, Sergeant Martinez, who agreed that Woolley should not have been ticketed. Martinez was surprised at the news of Woolley being ticked seeing as Woolley hadn't run afoul of CVC 21202(a). Martinez volunteered to counsel Officer Root on the matter, a conversation that had left Woolley feeling confident that the trial ruling would be in his favor.
However, as we know, the ruling was not in Woolley's favor. After the initial loss, Woolley made plans to appeal the ruling. Instead he found himself facing a new set of problems. After the trial, Officer Root paid a visit to Woolley's place of employment along with a self-transcribed transcript of the traffic court's proceedings and a complaint about Woolley. Woolley's employer, per company protocol, had to investigate the claims made by Officer Root. So, in addition to appealing the verdict, Woolley now found himself facing a new set of problems from his employer.
Now that the City Attorney has ruled in Woolley's favor, he is in the process of filling out the paperwork to report Officer David Root to the San Diego Citizens' Review Board. Woolley hopes that the Citizens' Review Board will take disciplinary action on Officer Root. We will keep you updated on this new course of events as we learn more.
Meanwhile, we have contacted the San Diego Police Department to find out what sort of training program is currently in place to ensure that San Diego Police officers understand the intent and purpose of CVC 21202(a).
City Attorney's Office finally clarifies CVC 21202(a)
Last Friday, Andrew Woolley received the response from the City Attorney's office. As Kathy Keehan, Executive Director of the SDCBC says, the City Attorney has finally taken a formal position on CVC 21202 (a).
This reversal comes after a Traffic Court Judge stated that Woolley should have been riding along the right lane curb. This was due to a mistaken understanding, or rather a lack of understanding, regarding the two applicable exceptions:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle or vehicle proceeding in the same direction.
(3) When reasonably necessary to avoid conditions (including, but not limited to, fixed or moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes) that make it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge, subject to the provisions of Section 21656. For purposes of this section, a “substandard width lane” is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.
The ruling was reversed by the City Attorney because Woolley was riding at a speed greater than traffic. The Judge had made his ruling based on what the posted speed limit was on El Cajon Boulevard (35 mph), not based on what the speed of traffic on the road actually was at the time of the incident.
Now that the law has been clarified, Woolley is in the process of trying to figure out how to go about actually collecting the $165 fine he had to pay when originally cited.
We have not heard of other bicyclists either in the City of San Diego or in the county getting improperly ticketed for violating CVC 21202. If you have been cited, please do contact us.
36th street bridge song
There’s something to be said for early Monday mornings, out on the streets. In a car it’s a singular quiet focus. But on the bike, it’s as if you’re waking up with a familiar stranger. In the fall, just after the imposing of daylight savings time, you can glide into a city that is wide open and nearly deserted. At once ethereal, and eerie, streets lay empty, but open. Lights change on timer. Left over night club advertisements litter the ground: large, colorful with scantily-clad women and promises of cheap drinks. At the cusp of full day, the streets appear almost apocalyptic, oddly devoid of cars, or people. It’s some b-horror movie, only no half digested human slogs out of an alley: only a morning jogger, or a tiny dog pulling at full strength a half-pajama, half-sweatshirt owner clasping a cup of coffee, squinting into a yet unfamiliar day.
This could be my favorite time to ride. Enough light to see imperfections in the road, traffic nil to non-existent, and I can ride in the middle of the lane, as if I own it. Sitting up on the seat, arms crossed, taking deep breaths, there is a feeling, one that can’t really be placed into context, quantified with words, but it’s seeing a city bare and revealed. My city. Places that are usually passed in a hurry, watching for green and white taxies, errant tourist and attempting to get in time with green lights, now I can see graffiti, the stickers on store windows, notes left on light poles, cracked door panels, dirty side walks, and back alleyways. I could cut my time by a quarter, but the ride in takes about the same as the ride home; sitting up, looking around, taking my time.
Taking my time. It is one of those intangibles you forget to tell people when they ask “why do you ride back and forth to work.” The assumption that I’m trying to save the environment (not my goal, but an ancillary benefit), or the jump that because I ride a bike to work that I’m a vegetarian (only when someone offers liver), all things to be countered when trying to explain to someone that while, yes, driving a car is easier, it’s not actually better. I try to put it in words that when I get home, though my clothes are either soaked in sweat or stained with salt, I’m happier. The ride home unwinds my day. Instead of coming home with knots of undone work in my head, tangles of conflict and a quickly jumbled ball of stress, somehow the whole day is unwound, neatly rolled up. Getting home, I’m free of having been boxed in, thinking only about the day or bad radio DJs.
But it’s the moments you can’t forget that are hardest to explain. Like catching the timing right at Imperial and 36th. There’s a place there you can stop when the sun is rising and see a spectacular sight. The sky is dark, the horizon dark, but the buildings catch a fleeting touch of the morning sun and shine in silver reflection. Look exactly opposite, and in a 45 second period the sky will go from morning grey to fiery red explosion and back. Blink, and you'll miss it. There are some mornings I’ll stop there just past the cemetery, drop the bike down on the sidewalk and sit back on the curb to wait for this show.
People drive by in a hurry, incredulous at the sight of me. Mostly I don’t pay attention, sometimes, it’s a little like someone is peering into my own private spot. Others, I’m distracted by the fact they miss out on this spectacular show.
Ten minutes from this spot, I’m in early morning East Village. Coffee shops are brewing the first batch, in the distance a truck rumbles to life. It’s all mine for the taking. Pictures, probably a couple hundred by now, never seem to capture it. On Broadway, the buses roll nearly empty. The homeless are stirring, getting up before the police arrive. At the harbor, the water like glass.
There seems to be almost no effort to a morning ride. Occasionally, I get caught off guard, and find a sweat spot under my bag, or my helmet a little sweaty, gloves soaked. But it’s never an out-of-breath, never a heart beating 3 times a second, never a feeling of exhaustion. It’s just like waking up, me, and the city.
When It Comes to Bicycle Lights, Go Big, Go Bright
I recently went shopping for new front and rear bicycle lights so that my wife and I could both be fully lighted for Saturday’s Tweed Ride. Because I ride relatively short distances at night, and don’t do it that often, I primarily need my lights to be seen, rather than to see where I’m going.
Looking at the available lights at several local shops, I was struck by the trend towards very small LED lights, and I do mean small. Some are the size of a quarter, some a little larger. While these little guys promise bright LED technology, their small size raises concerns about visibility. As a driver, I’ve seen many bicyclists lately whose lights are literally the last thing I notice. In fact, I have to peer closely to notice the small, dim lights tucked under saddles or clipped to belt loops.
I suspect the idea behind the small lights is to appeal to either the lightweight racing set, or the minimalist urban hipster set. People who roll with tiny lights probably also think they just need something to be seen, but take it from a bicyclist and driver: they don’t do the job.
Now, I’m no scientist, but it seems logical that if you want to be seen, you should ride with bright, relatively large lights. Why would you compromise your safety on a bicycle for the sake of size or weight? On my quest for new lights, one shop employee even pointed out that some of the lights they carried might not be street legal because they couldn’t be seen from 300 feet, as required by California law*.
When it comes to roadway safety, especially in the dark or in inclement weather conditions, there are a lot of factors beyond our control, regardless of the vehicle we choose. Lights are one element that we can control, so it just doesn’t make sense to equip your bicycle with inadequate lighting. If we as bicyclists expect the rights we are due as roadway users, we must also make sure we do everything we can to equip our vehicles safely and responsibly.
*The particular light we were looking at was a rear light, but California law oddly requires only a red reflector on the rear of a bicycle, not a light. See California Vehicle Code 21201.
EcoVelo has a lot of information and reviews about different lights.