Police Have Issued 87 Bicycle Citations Since Enforcement Began in April
Sgt. James Rooney, of the Somerville Police Department, spoke on "Greater Somerville" about the department's efforts to make bikers adhere to traffic laws.
The Somerville Police Department began issuing citations to bicycle-riding traffic scofflaws on April 11, and since that time the department has issued 87 citations to bikers, according to Sgt. James Rooney, who spoke about the issue on "Greater Somerville" Tuesday.
You can watch the TV episode here.
To put that number in perspective, Rooney said in that same time period, the department issued about 1300 traffic citations to motorists.
Rooney joined Hayes Morrison, director of traffic and infrastructure with the city of Somerville, and "Greater Somerville" hosts Joseph Lynch and KyAnn Anderson for a special Bike Month episode of the show.
In addition to talking about the police department's bicycle traffic enforcement efforts, the guests spoke about recent bicycle initiatives in the city, such as new bike corrals in most of the city's squares, and bike safety.
More on recent bicycle issues in Somerville
Traffic Violating Somerville Bicyclists Get Mostly Verbal Warnings
Somerville Police Crack Down on Bicycle-Riding Traffic Scofflaws
As Planned, Somerville Gets More Bike Parking
kevin thomas crowley
11:27 am on Saturday, May 19, 2012
we paint the city orange with tickets for all sorts of behaviors, yet we ignore the dangerous actions of pedestrians. i speak here of people approaching crosswalks. daily i see people not stopping to look around themselves before walking across a crosswalk. so many just ignore the world around them , walking directly from the sidewalk into the street. often they are talking on the phone or buzzing their head with music from earphones blocking their ability to hear, totally ignoring cars heading directy toward them. many never even lift their bowed heads as they cross.
stop,
look and listen seems to have disappeared. this is more dangerous than so called "illegally parked cars", not having a top of your barrels covered on pick-up day, etc. this behavior must be stopped. put the parking officers on pedestrain patrol
for four hours a week, especialy at rush hour, to correct this wide spread dangerous behavior. i don't want more tickets, but this is one area where correction calls out.