This Bicycle Registration Law Gives Police Yet Another Excuse To Punish Insufficiently Meek Citizens

[JerrySTL ★]

https://reason.com/2019/12/17/this-bicycle-registration-law-gives-police-yet-another-excuse-to-punish-insufficiently-meek-citizens/?itm_source=parsely-api

A Montgomery County, Maryland, ordinance authorizes impoundment and misdemeanor charges for cyclists who lack the requisite sticker.

JACOB SULLUM | 12.17.2019 2:40 PM

 

Cpl. Jason Halko (MCP)

Did you know that residents of Montgomery County, Maryland, are legally required to register their bicycles? Neither did Steve Silverman, who last June received a criminal citation for violating that requirement. In a video about that experience, Silverman, founder of Flex Your Rights, presents it as an example of how "police use ill-conceived laws to punish people who assert their rights." While Silverman's brush with the law was relatively mild as these things go, it does illustrate the problems posed by the myriad excuses that legislators give police for hassling people they deem insufficiently respectful.

Officer Christopher Brown of the Montgomery County Police Department initially pulled Silverman over for running a stop sign while riding his bike in what he describes as "a quiet residential neighborhood." In the police body camera video of the encounter, Silverman suggests that Brown stopped him because he had seen Silverman provide "educational information" to a young man who had just been detained, questioned, and released by Brown and Cpl. Jason Halko. That suggestion evidently irks Brown, who later asks, "Do you just try to intimidate me because you don't want me to give you a ticket, or why?"

 

Silverman declines to show identification but supplies his name, address, and date of birth. He takes out his smartphone to record the encounter, which leads to this exchange with Halko:

Silverman: I'm also recording the duration of this encounter, officers.

Halko: You don't have a right to record when you're stopped and detained for a violation.

Silverman: I disagree. It's a First Amendment right to record.

Halko: Oh, all right.

Having lost that argument, a sheepish and possibly embarrassed Halko leans into Brown's car and reports that "I don't see a registration sticker on his bicycle." After Halko confirms that Silverman does not have the requisite sticker, Brown radios for a van to pick up the bike. That's right: The same county ordinance that requires registration of bicycles also says police "may impound any unregistered bicycle until the bicycle is properly registered." Although Halko ultimately dissuaded Brown from taking Silverman's bike, the officers still left him with two criminal citations requiring him to appear in court, one for the stop sign violation and one for the unregistered bicycle.

Silverman says he was not aware of the bicycle registration requirement until that day. "I was dumbfounded when they wrote me a ticket for it," he writes in an email. "Afterward, when I learned that it was a criminal summons, I was double-dumbfounded. The registration law is written as a Class C civil violation (i.e., a non-crime). But under Maryland law, the police may write up any class A, B, or C violation as a misdemeanor crime, as they did in my case." If charged as a misdemeanor, a Class C violation is punishable by a $50 fine and up to 10 days in jail if the fine is not paid.

When the November 12 court date rolled around, Silverman and his lawyer showed up, but neither Brown nor Halko did. "When my attorney described the charges, the judge just shook her head in disbelief," Silverman says in his video, "and the prosecutor kind of chuckled as he dropped the charges."

Silverman notes that "I was very fortunate because I could afford to hire a great attorney," and "I didn't need to find child care or risk losing my job to make that court date," which is not the case for many other defendants. He urges legislators to "stop passing laws that give police the power to stop and arrest people, because police will inevitably find creative ways to use those laws to harm people in ways you did not intend." And if legislators find that "police are misusing, for example, mandatory bicycle registration laws," he says, they should "repeal those damn laws."

A couple of legislators already have heeded Silverman's recommendation. Last week, David Moon, a Democrat who represents Silverman's district in the Maryland House of Delegates, posted a link to his video on Facebook, along with the text of the bicycle registration law, urging the Montgomery County Council to "repeal this nonsense." Council Member Tom Hucker (D–District 5) says he wants to re-examine the law. According to a 2016 Citylab report, "Only a handful of mainland North American cities currently have mandatory bicycle registration laws."

 

[Page Turner]

...the weirdest thing about local bike registration statutes is that they are always initiated with the idea of doing "something" about bicycle theft.  And Montgomery county, Md (I've lived there).like every other local police jurisdiction in America, does jack all in pursuit and prosecution of bicycle  thieves. Unless you can convince someone in the police precinct that your lost bike was worth more than $10,000.

 

[donkpow]

In the last year, the local gov't removed the requirement that bicycles have a "bell". Yep, a "bell". Not an "audible signalling device" or something like that. A bell. It turns out the police were using the regulation to examine poor and homeless people who ride around the city. Records indicate that the application of the regulation was not applied to other recreational riders or commuters in the same way. I wish they had pestered me, I was going to take them all the way to the SCOTUS over the matter. I hated that bell law.

[Mr. Silly]

Are they confiscating bikes from 10 year olds?

[Dirtyhip]

eeks.  If you own 10 bikes?

[Razors Edge ★]

2 hours ago, donkpow said:

In the last year, the local gov't removed the requirement that bicycles have a "bell". Yep, a "bell". Not an "audible signalling device" or something like that. A bell. It turns out the police were using the regulation to examine poor and homeless people who ride around the city. Records indicate that the application of the regulation was not applied to other recreational riders or commuters in the same way. I wish they had pestered me, I was going to take them all the way to the SCOTUS over the matter. I hated that bell law.

I'm guessing it would be easier for the cops to just cap you when you started mouthing off about you "rights". 

For the record, a cop busted me and about three other riders (at one time, many more that morning) as we blew through a very low volume, quiet neighborhood stop sign which was a common shortcut on the main commuter route from VA to DC.  I had blown that stop countless times, and would only stop if I spotted a car on the crossroad.

Anyway, the cop was very nice. Just gathered us together for a quick speech about the rules and made us wait for several minutes (the punishment) before sending us on our ways.  He definitely could have been a dick and asked for our IDs or checked out if we had proper lights/reflectors/etc., but he was firm but professional. He was clearly at the intersection because some neighbor had complained about some ass cyclist who blew the stop sign - probably right in front of the driver who had the right of way. 

[donkpow]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

I'm guessing it would be easier for the cops to just cap you when you started mouthing off about you "rights". 

I'm slow, not stupid. I would tell them that it was a bad law but that is far as I would take it with the officer. But I would also get a civil rights lawyer (pro boner, of course) and burn down the court house. 

[Page Turner]

^^^that gave me a small, very short lasting boner. ^^^ The evidence of police abuse of (and ignorance of) the vehicle code here with regard to bicycle traffic enforcement is voluminous and dispiriting. Also very one sided, as the survivors of conflict tend to be motorists.

[donkpow]

12 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

The evidence of police abuse of (and ignorance of) the vehicle code here with regard to bicycle traffic enforcement is voluminous and dispiriting. Also very one sided, as the survivors of conflict tend to be motorists.

You have millions of cyclists out there. Frankly, I suspect the majority of the cyclists are ignorant or disregarding of traffic laws.

[MickinMD ★]

Wow. I'll have to check out the law.  Montgomery County is a 40 min. drive from my house in Anne Arundel County, where we need no bike registration.

So if I go to Mont. Co. and ride my bike in a park, am I violating a law because I don't have a sticker?

Once, a couple of teens were hit by a car when they jaywalked and ran in front of it.  The county police then began blanketing the area with tickets.

I was at a crosswalk when the B&A Bike Trail crossed a street. No moving traffic in site, I went across against the red hand because a thunderstorm was fast approaching and I was 10 minutes from my car.  A cop, hiding in an unmarked car, caught me as soon as I crossed and gave me a warning ticket against my drivers license.  He took so long that the ticket was soaked by the rain when he handed it to me and I thanked him for making it so much more dangerous to get back to my car compared to me crossing a street with no traffic in sight.