In New York City, as well as many other places in America, the relationship between police and cyclists can be fraught. Here鈥檚 from the NYPD鈥檚 6th Precinct that infuriated local riders, and not just because of the gratuitous use of emojis:
Predictably, a Twitter tizzy ensued. After all, cyclists wondered, where was the equivalent reminder to motorists? Drivers commit all the infractions cited in the tweet, and not only are the , but often the drivers .
Then of course there was the accompanying image: an police car blocking a Citi Bike station in flagrant disregard of the pavement markings. Sure, officers might have been in the process of busting a cyclists for some egregious violation such as riding with earbuds or , but it still stung, especially given the frequency with which riders encounter . In a timeline filled mostly with handy crimefighting tips and 鈥淲anted鈥 tweets, this one felt suspiciously like a provocation.
In any case,聽the 6th offered :
We address conditions and crimes where we observe them. We expect everyone to follow the law, be they in a car, on foot, or riding a bike.
Cyclists riding through red lights continue to be an issue that comes up at community council and neighborhood policing meetings.
At first blush this seems rational enough, but read it again and you鈥檒l notice it contradicts itself: first it says they 鈥渁ddress conditions and crimes where we observe them,鈥 but then it says that cyclists disobeying the law is 鈥渁n issue that comes up at community council and neighborhood policing meetings,鈥 which implies their enforcement is motivated more by these secondhand reports than by direct observation. Certainly if you鈥檙e brunching on the sidewalk in the 6th, you鈥檒l witness cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians (not to mention people on skateboards, Rollerblades, scooters, and all the other wacky forms of conveyance people use to get around the Village) violating traffic laws in equal measure. In fact, on the right day you may even get to see Alec Baldwin getting into a , since that鈥檚 where the whole thing went down.
But while it鈥檚 at best a stretch to say New York City cyclists break the law more than other road users, it鈥檚 not surprising that the sorts of people who find cyclists annoying are more inclined to attend neighborhood meetings and be vocal about it. Furthermore, the people who run these meetings are appointed in a process that borders on the inscrutable, the upshot of which is that New York City community boards increasingly of the neighborhoods they鈥檙e supposed to represent. (This is enough of a problem that an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers just to impose term limits on community board members.) And of course these non-representative groups and the cranky residents they cater to have the ear of the police, who seem to place more importance on their complaints than they do on actual data. Indeed, in an interview with Reclaim magazine, :
To what extent is traffic enforcement based on complaints like these, compared to say, data?
I would say the majority of traffic enforcement regarding e-bikes and bicyclists is based on complaints.
This anecdote-driven policing has serious consequences; last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio started a 鈥渂litz鈥 on ebikes based on the complaints of an investment manager on the Upper West Side, and despite the absence of any data indicating e-bikes are particularly dangerous it鈥檚 still on the lives of immigrant delivery workers, even after the city moved to legalize certain types of e-bikes.
Not only is the NYPD tough on cyclists who break the law, but it can also be tough on cyclists who get who break the law, which creates a general sense of mistrust. On top of this, cyclists and police often have a difficult time seeing eye to eye because they literally don鈥檛 see eye to eye; police tend to operate from cars and are thus particularly susceptible to 鈥渨indshield perspective.鈥
It鈥檚 an understatement to say that motorists and cyclists have their fair share of misunderstandings, so when the people who are enforcing the traffic laws are doing so from behind the wheel the whole system is essentially designed to fail鈥攁sking drivers to keep more vulnerable road users safe is like asking Lenny from Of Mice and Men to look after your pet gerbil. And the implications of the police spending so much time in cars goes far beyond traffic enforcement, which is why is such an important component of law enforcement reform.
And let鈥檚 not forget the perception common among police and civilians alike that when drivers hurt or kill people it鈥檚 an 鈥渁ccident鈥 and not a crime. At the height of the MAGA bomber freakout a driver in Brooklyn ran a red light and sent another vehicle flying into a father and son who were crossing the street. No charges were filed, and :
“With everything going on with packages and bombs, we're not going further into this because no one was likely to die or seriously injured,” the spokesperson added.
We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to all the law enforcement agencies that caught the bomber, but violence is violence, whether it comes by pipe bomb or SUV. And when it comes to maiming and killing, the latter has a much better track record.