I caught up with a cyclist who was ticketed not once, not twice, but a whopping five times in one bike-related incident last month. We’ll call him “James” because he needs to keep quiet before his court day in December. He got five tickets from one cop, including “biking without a bell, biking with headphones on, biking out of a bike lane, running a red light and disturbing the peace for potentially endangering citizens by reckless behavior.”

James was biking along West 17th St and made a right on 8th Ave. “A police officer saw me, raised his hands from the other side of the street and started to walk towards me,” said James. “I honestly had no idea what he was doing because he did not ask for me to stop.”

They gave him a red light ticket for crossing a green light at a diagonal in order to get to the bike lane. “I cut across 19th at a diagonal through the intersection into the bike lane and immediately was cut off by another police offer with lights and everything.”

He made this handy map.

James told us that the cops got pretty aggressive with him. “If you keep staring at me you’re going to have bigger problems,” said one of the cops. “Go stand on the corner and stop looking at me.” James tells us the cop threatened to arrest him multiple times for “fleeing the scene.” Biking out of a bike lane isn’t actually a law.

So the lesson learned is to not catch a cop on a day he has a quota, eh?

(Photos: James)