Ticketless Travel

So there you are, enjoying a great ride on your bike, breeze in your face, when suddenly a good day turns bad. You hear the yelp of a siren, and your heart sinks as you look to find the flashing lights in your mirrors. You pull over, wondering, perhaps, what you did and how much this stop is going to cost you. Depending on the infraction, the cost could be significant. If you are guilty of some serious offense, like excessive speed, you may even get arrested, be taken before the magistrate, make new friends at the local bonding agency and meet some of your community's finer denizens in the local lockup. Even for more benign stops, there can still be some steep expenses. There's the fine itself and the likely multiyear northward bump in your insurance premiums. But wait, there's more: You may be required to come to court and burn a vacation day in the process.

As a longtime motorcyclist and a cop who's written his fair share of tickets, here are a few thoughts from behind the mirrored sunglasses that may help you avoid an unwelcome encounter with the boys (and girls) in blue. This is a difficult discussion because the relationship between motorcyclists and police is, and must be, at best, difficult. After all, each group's goals are mutually exclusive. Motorcyclists are all about independence, and they willingly deal with the inherent risks on the road to enjoy their passion. On the other hand, police enforce conformity-in this case, the rules of the road-and the controlling of risk.

Still, there are some things that can override this tension and work to your benefit. First off, and this may seem obvious, don't get my attention. Don't be zealous about breaking the law. Stay off my radar, both literally and figuratively. Based on a jurisdiction's population density, your average cop may see thousands of vehicles during a day's tour of duty. Your goal, simply, is to avoid standing out. Be invisible, and let me nab the other guy.

How do you avoid this unwanted attention? First, and obviously, don't break the law too egregiously. Remember that traffic enforcement is a major source of income for any jurisdiction, but this income is even more important for smaller jurisdictions and those without a large tax base. In other words, tickets are the bread and butter of many rural jurisdictions, the very places where one finds the twisty roads and great scenery so loved by riders.

Generally, if the weather and road conditions are good, I'll give a rider 10 mph over the posted limit because I recognize that bikes are more maneuverable than cars (and because I'm basically a nice guy). However, speed in a school zone, weave in and out of traffic, pop a wheelie or do a burnout, and I'll be meeting you on the side of the road.

Now for a few things beyond the obvious. Picture me, sitting in my air-conditioned cruiser, eating a cream-filled doughnut and doing my damnedest to keep powdered sugar off my uniform. All of a sudden, you go screaming by me with pipes loud enough to rattle my fillings. You just got my attention. Or maybe your helmet or T-shirt features obscenities. I've just become interested in you. Or that turtle helmet doesn't look like it meets code. Again, you just got my attention. You're riding in the left lane. I'm interested. Your headlight is burned out, you fail to signal a turn, you flip off a motorist, you're wearing shorts and sandals...you get the picture. What you don't want to have is my attention.

At night, there's an additional dynamic at work. After dark, and especially between the hours of 1 and 5 A.M., most cops assume that unless you're going to or coming from work, you're probably up to no good. It may sound unfair, but arrest statistics and experience say we're right. We're interested in everyone on the road at these hours, and doubly so if there's a bar nearby.