Last August, cyclist David Segal received four tickets—three for running red lights and one for disorderly conduct—during the same traffic stop. Segal, the former spokesman for City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, was biking down Nostrand Avenue in Bed-Stuy when he was stopped on August 10th. While the disorderly conduct was dismissed outright, Segal appeared in court Friday and was found guilty in the three red light violations—which means he owes $1,250 for a single cycling stop. But Segal plans to push to get the laws changed to make the penalties for bicycles less than that for cars: "One guy was driving 30 miles over the speed limit, and he paid an $80 fine," Segal told us. "And they literally gave me a fine that is six times more than I paid for the entire bicycle. How does this make any sense?"
With the so-called "cycling crackdown" of the past few years (which lessened somewhat in 2012), Segal believes cyclists are being unfairly targeted by the NYPD as easy cash-cows, because fines for cyclists are the same as for drivers. Which is not to say that he doesn't agree that cyclists should obey the traffic laws: "The thinking behind the law is, 'Well, it's dangerous when cars go through red lights,'" Segal, who works as communications coordinator at Long Island Progressive Coalition, said. "This is why it's so much money when you do it. And if we see that you're a repeat offender, we increase it substantially. We do that and you recognize the consequences of bicycles going through red lights, because most bicyclists treat red lights as stop signs anyway right? But the consequences of a bicycle going through a red light are so much less severe that it doesn't make any sense to maintain the penalty."
(David Segal)
Segal has to pay $150 for the first ticket, $350 for the second ticket and $750 for the third ticket. Attorney Steve Vaccaro previously explained this law: "The point [of the increase in fines] is to harshly punish recidivists," he told us. "But a person who goes through three reds in a row is not really a recidivist." Vaccaro said that while cops can follow motorists and cyclists for as long as they like, racking up numerous infractions, "this kind of following almost never happens with motorists, but happens surprisingly often with cyclists."
"Many traffic court judges will treat multiple violations issued this way as 'double-dipping' and dismiss some of the duplicative charges," Vaccaro added. But that wasn't so for Segal, despite the fact that he had been told a similar thing: "Some lawyers I know said, 'The judge is not going to give you an actual penalty, just go in and explain your case.'" And despite the fact he argued in court that there was no way the cop could have seen him going through multiple red lights based on where he was stationed: "It was like the magic bullet theory of how I went through these red lights."
"In the scheme of things it's not a big deal, there's a lot of other serious things going on," Segal noted. "But it's just one of those taxes New York City has all over the place that are regressive—if I was making minimum wage, this would be a month's salary for riding my bicycle, you know what I mean?" Segal asks that any cyclists interested in helping out in the endeavor should email him at [email protected].
There was one other thing that happened to Segal at court on Friday—the cop tried to use our article on his tickets against him:
I'm sitting there in the court room and the judge isn't there yet, and I see the two cops that pulled me over. They walk in and immediately—I don't know if they thought their voices wouldn't carry or not—they say, "Yeah look, he's right over there, there's Gothamist right there." [laughs] So they start referring to me as 'Gothamist.' So I just shout back to them, 'You know I can hear you!' And they just look embarrassed and they speak in a lower voice.
When the judge finally calls me up, the guy that's in the picture that I took—the one in the article you guys did—walks up. And I can see he has the Gothamist article in his hand, he's printed it out with highlights on it and everything. So the judge has him give his testimony.
So he gives his side of the story and then he gets to the Gothamist article. He says, "Now I'd like to submit this as evidence. This is from 'The Gothamist' and it was an attempt by the defendant to defame us." And he hands it to the judge and says, "He admits going to the red lights right in there." And the judge is looking it over and he responds, "Well, this is inflammatory and doesn't appear to contain anything of relevance to the case, so I'm just gonna hand it back to you."
