Ok, not really. But I did find myself floating around on the ocean that is the internet in a game of “where’s waldo?” with myself on flickr, literally:

And how perfect because I googled myself and found that I was mentioned in an article for Chelsea Now, a local New York City newspaper, from when I was interviewed after getting a traffic ticket at the Critical Mass in NYC 20 minutes after the photo above was taken:

Meanwhile, the Critical Mass ride had splintered and was running into some roadblocks. A half-dozen cyclists were stopped and ticketed on Eighth Ave. at 16th St.

“I’m really quite bummed,” said Hum, 20, a Boston University student from Westchester. Hum was ticketed for riding outside the bike lane—he and others had been riding on the opposite side of the street from the bike lane.

Hum has been participating in the Boston version of Critical Mass for years and said the police have never hindered a ride there. As he stood contemplating his ticket, word of more riders being ticketed came in, including a group at Madison Ave. and 42nd St. Most of the evening’s citations were for riding without a signaling device or riding outside a bike lane.

[Here's the rest of the article]

To the uninitiated, Critical Mass is “an event typically held on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world where bicyclists and other self-propelled commuters take to the streets en masse.” I attended Critical Mass in Manhattan last month where I was hoping for a glorious bike ride with hundreds of riders like it is in Boston, but ended up getting a ticket instead (note I was not there to see Al Sharpton, I was there for a fun-as-hell massive bike ride)

Too bad I didn’t have anything interesting to say; I was so pissed I was at a loss for words. I didn’t understand why cops had been tailing us the entire time until I learned about the RNC 2004 debacle when cops were ordered to clear the city streets and arrested hundreds of Critical Mass riders when thousands of Critical Mass riders rode on the streets anyway. Since then it seems cops have instated an anti-critical mass policy to give Critical Mass riders traffic tickets in an effort to bully riders and gain control of Critical Mass.

The violation listed on my ticket was for “Not riding in bike lane when bike lane provided.” This is preposterous. New York City law essentially states that bicyclists will ride in a bike lane unless obstacles/obstructions prove riding in it to be unsafe. In my case, the cops were obstructing me from getting to the bike lane in the first place. I’ve plead “Not Guilty” and am awaiting my day in court on July 15th, when I plan on showing up in a full suit with suspenders and bow tie, a detailed written testimony backed by poster sized diagrams with circles and arrows, and plenty of fist banging with a large magnifying glass.

On a final note, the policing of Critical Mass NYC is quite a shame because Critical Mass is a great way to encourage people to have fun and bike. It’s also a huge waste of city resources to follow around hundreds of bikers every month just so they can give them bogus tickets. Sure they have a job to keep traffic in order but in the ten years before the RNC before cops policed it Critical Mass didn’t cause any more trouble than it did after RNC 2004. In other cities like Boston cops don’t care at all and it isn’t a problem. I remember being at the front line in April’s Boston CM and as we passed by a bunch of cops in Cambridge, riders began to run a red light and one cop jokingly started counting aloud, “One Red Light, Two Red Lights…Three Hundred Red Lights..”

In other cities like Boston police cooperate with the spontaneous ride and escort the ride peacefully instead of ticketing or arresting people. I probably won’t ride Critical Mass Manhattan again unless cops back off, but that’s probably never going to happen as long as these cops just keep asserting their big fat New York egos.

p.s. If you were paying attention this was the first post on my Law Blog to ever discuss anything about Law!
And if you had trouble finding me in that photo I’m the one in the awesome pink shirt.