I posted a video on youtube of one of the recent encounters we have had with the Stone Mountain Park Police. It was pretty civil, and we didn’t really get into any trouble, but it is funny nonetheless. I think if it was a bunch of 16-18 year olds the same encounter may have been a little different. I am sure when he got up close and realized we were all 40+ that he didn’t really know what to say. As you will see in the video.
To make it clear… The stop sign we ride through is at an entrance to the park. The cars are at the ticket office and have to pull forward about 40 yards before they are in the intersection. We have never been within 50 feet of any vehicle coming through that intersection. Nothing we have done other than riding a unicycle could be considered dangerous. To stop at the stop sign dismount and remount, would actually create a much more dangerous situation. So rolling through at 2-5 miles an hour and judging our approach based on the traffic just makes more sense. We have been doing this the same way for 5 years. I typically see bicycles blow through that stop sign at 30+ miles an hour routinely. In all fairness when they get caught doing that the Park Police have given them tickets recently.
At least you got stopped. I recently rode through a stop sign right in front of a local police officer who was hiding in order to catch people running the stop sign. I was sort of hoping he would stop but me but glad that he did not.
There’s a bridge near my house that is maybe a couple of hundred yards long. It has a wide bike lane, a concrete divider, and then a wide sidewalk between the divider and the traffic lane. Several years ago, i was walking on that divider, and a cop stopped me. That divider is about 6" wide on top, so no big feat of balancing to walk it. He couldn’t think of any reason that it was illegal or anything, but since he was the man with the gun, I figured maybe I’d better not walk on it anymore.
More recently, I was out riding around White Rock Lake on my bicycle. They do actually patrol that area with bicycle policemen, and I hear that lately they have even been ticketing bicyclists for excessive speed (a lot of it is hike/bike trail, so you can run people over). Well, a bicycle policeman in front of me stopped to talk to some poeple, so I said “Passing on your left” and zipped on around. He looked around, and looked like he was going to say something, and then thought better of it. My impression was he was going to holler at the punk to slow down on his roadie bike, only it was an old fat man on a cruiser bike, and so complaing about speed didn’t fit well.
I’ve yet to be stopped for blowing stop signs, and in fact I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it happening to anyone else. I think an enforcement officer has to be pretty bored to go there, except at problem intersections where accidents are a known issue.
The bike path I ride on also has a 15 mph speed limit. I frequently see roadies exceeding this, but I also think they mostly are pretty responsible riders (I hope to be able to exceed the speed limit indefinitely before heading out to RTL).
Asking a cyclist to stop all the way when there is a clear view of all directions of traffic seems a bit excessive, but those are the rules. I have a few intersections I pass through which do not have good sight angles, and I slow down a lot more for them…
Good for you. Now you have more time to read the forum and ride.
John, the sight angle on this stop sign is crazy. You would have a hard time timing it to get hit intentionally. It is that much space. Now if I was doing 30-40 through the intersection… different story.
He actually pulled us over 20 minutes after we ran it. He had been sitting in his squad car looking through the Georgia Code to find a way to ticket us. Must have been really bored.
Actually after FLUCK I rode arounf Copenhagen quite a bit on my Unicycle. I was stopped 3 times. Once they told me that my Unicycle was not a bike so I could not ride in the bike lanes. The second time they told me that I could not ride on the sidewalk and that I had to ride in the Bike Lane. The third time they stopped me for not having a light on my Unicycle while riding after dark. I did not get any tickets. I just think that they were curious. Here in Israel I have been watched by cops doing trials on park benches Statue bases and stairs of public buildings. They seem to like watching but have never said anything. One time I rode down a flight of stairs in front of a supermarket and 5 policemen just exited. I just missed hitting them and rode off as fast as possible but only heard them say wow that guy is amazing!
Even security guards here have never asked me to stop doing trials on the stairs or railings of the buildings that they guard.
Four adult members of the Memphis Unicycle Club were recently made to feel un-welcome while riding in a city park.
We have been going to the Mud Island River Park for several years and have always been welcomed. We went a couple of weeks ago on opening day for the season. We were finding our usual variety of places to ride until a security guard comes by. He said we were “welcome to ride wherever we want, just don’t ride there.” So, we moved on. Shortly, here comes “Barney Fife”, “you can’t ride there either”. One of the guys started to ride on a low wall. The wall is about 1 foot wide, 1.5 feet high and about 200 feet long so it makes a great place to ride. Well, Barney got upset and asked the guy to leave the park. We have riden that same wall many times in the past. Needless to say, we all left and Barney watched us until we were gone.
Two of us went back to the park last weekend. Barney was not there.
Yeah… Israel is amazing when it comes to cops/security not really caring! (of course, there are exceptions, but Israel is a very unicycle-friendly place)
Hey, wait! Didn’t we get sort of stopped at the University of Jerusalem? Well, it was like midnight and we had two bikers with us. I’m not sure if they asked us to not ride at all or just leave or just not use obstacles or what not…
In any case, I’ve never been pulled over or anything, but I have been asked to either not ride because there are to many people around, not use obstacles, and maybe a few other things. But nobody has ever bothered to get out of a cop car to tell me anything haha.
Not pulled over by cops, but some police bikers on patrol came towards me and a mate when we were at the skatepark.
One policeman tried to ride a unicycle, but he failed.
Still funy to see.
I had completely forgotten about that! Yes, it was Campus Security that asked us to leave. They don’t allow any bikes, skateboards, rollerblades or unis on the Hebrew University Campus. Interesting because we go riding at Bar-Ilan University and they don’t say anything there. Must have been a biking or rollerblading accident in the past that makes them so unwheelfreindly.
I’m guessing you’re joking, but maybe not … anyway … In most states, bicycles are considered to be vehicles and have to adhere to the same vehicle codes as cars. In Chico, named America’s top biking town by Bicycling magazine about 10 years ago, we tend to find it impossible to get a traffic cop to pull over a motorist even for the most obvious violations, but they’ll sure bust cyclists at the drop of a hat. I figure I’m safe on the uni, though, as it’s classified as equivalent to a pedestrian here.
As you will see in the video.
