Cyclists Stopped for Being Annoying

By Washcycle:

Pulling this up from the comments. Here is a response from Montgomery County Chief of Police J. Thomas Manger about the cyclists stopped on MacArthur Avenue for "being annoying."

Mr. Douglas,

After receiving the e-mail that you sent to the County Executive regarding your encounter with Officer Dee Jordan on January 18, 2010, I directed 1st District Acting Commander, Lieutenant John Hack, to gain more information regarding this complaint.

According to Lieutenant Hack, Officer Jordan was assigned to the area on a burglary-prevention detail when she noticed a group of bicycle riders on Macarthur Boulevard. Officer Jordan observed the bicyclists riding two abreast and impeding a vehicle whose driver was attempting to pass. Officer Jordan consequently pulled the group of riders over in a safe area for the purpose of informing them about Maryland traffic laws. Specifically, Article 21, §1205 of the Annotated Code of Maryland states that, "Each person operating a bicycle or a motor scooter on a roadway may ride two abreast only if the flow of traffic is unimpeded." We have received complaints, for years, in that area from cyclists, runners and drivers about unsafe actions on the part of all. Officer Jordan's experience from working there confirms that sharing the roadway in that area between motorists and cyclists is a common problem, especially during the weekends and holidays. As an avid cyclist myself, I am fully aware of the "competition" that often exists between the bikes and the cars. Often, my fellow cyclists are our own worst enemy by not obeying the traffic laws that apply to everyone. I am also keenly aware that many drivers don't like sharing the road with cyclists. Use of the roadway is a privilege, not a right, and we all must obey the law.

I can assure you the intention of Officer Jordan and the police department is not to discourage anyone's privilege of using our roadways but to promote safety and cooperation among the many users. She was doing her job. And while she may not have cited the exact Code section, she did attempt to ensure that your group was aware of the law. Your portrayal of the interaction is, I believe, a disservice to Officer Jordan. But that is certainly your choice. The bottom line is that she observed what she believed was a traffic infraction and chose to give a verbal warning, not a written citation.

Please rest assured that traffic safety for everyone on our roadways remains a priority for the Department of Police. In the meantime, please feel free to contact Lieutenant John Hack directly at 240-773-6070 should you have any additional concern or questions on this issue.

J. Thomas Manger

Chief of Police

And an anonymous witness replied.

I was sitting on the back of this group (10-20 feet behind the last rider) testing out a new bike and not pulling through in the paceline, basically the whole way down McArthur Blvd. So, I had a clear view of the paceline of 8-9 riders the whole time. I can confirm it was never more wide than a tight 2-person paceline doing around 20-25 mph all the way down McArthur Blvd. At times, it was single file, where necessary, due to traffic, road width, etc.
As we came into the base of Angler's hill below the entrance to Great Falls park (doing around 20mph and slowing down to around 15 mph), the police car came up really quickly from behind onto my back wheel with lights flashing. So, we obviously weren't impeding traffic, since the officer came right up behind me. At that time, we were still double-file, with me hanging slightly off the back. I was totally confused when the officer pulled us over, since we were doing nothing wrong.After the female officer told us to pull over into a parking lot on the right-side of the road, she asked if we knew what the rules were. One person in our group said it was 2 abreast (the right answer). Apparently caught off guard by the fact that we knew the right answer, the officer then said we were way wider than that and we were all over the road. This was a TOTALLY FALSE DESCRIPTION by the officer. I appreciate the fact that police have a tough job and sometimes have to make split-second descisions, but that description was just totally inaccurate. However, I didn't protest (and no one else did either) since the officer seemed to be acting rather arbitrarily and intent on intimidating us by collecting our names for a list / database and saying if she ever came across us again (for some prospective, yet-to-be determined infraction) she would fine us. She said she was tired of getting complaints about cyclists in the area and on narrow roads like Glen road. However, complaints about other cyclists (whether justified or simply called in by drivers who don't like bikes) is no reason to treat us this way. You can't just pull someone over and make things up that never happened (like us being all over the road) and resort to "guilt by association" in regard to some unspecified people we have never even met and alleged events which we don't even know really happened. Despite the absurdity of the situation, we all just stood there and politely gave our full names and states of residence (since we didn't have drivers' licenses on us). But, I have to say, the fact that she collected our names for a list / database of cyclists is rather heavy-handed and, frankly, a little bit Orwellian.Part of me would like to write this off as just mis-perception or over over-eagerness by the police officer. However, when I was riding back by myself on McArthur around noon I came across another small group of a few cyclists who said they also had been pulled-over for no good reason. So, given a report of a similar occurence in the same area on the same day, it's rather hard to write-off what happened to us as simply a mistake or a misunderstanding.Rather, it seems that some decision has been made (either by the individual officer or at the direction of management) to scrutinize cyclists in particular. Maybe it's in response to complaints (valid or not) by motorists, as self-stated by the officer herself. Whatever the case, I can say that there was no justification to pull us over since we were doing absolutely nothing wrong. And it seemed to have happened more than one time that day, according to others.If others had (or have in the future) similar experiences in the MD area, I hope they post their experiences here and contact the police to complain about this kind of arbitrary mistreatment and rather blatant intimidation.

If this becomes a pattern, cyclists in the area will have to document this kind of behavior and make sure it is stopped by the police department's management. In particular, I am concerned that the officer self-stated that she is compiling a list of names for a database. Frankly, I'd like to know what, exactly, she (and her department) plan to do with this information

Again, I appreciate the fact that police have a tough job and deal with a lot of valid, difficult problems. But this incident was not one of them. This officer was just totally out of bounds.

http://www.thewashcycle.com/2010/01/police-and-witness-respond.html