Taylor: This may help you with your ticket
I took this post of Blaze's from the SpookyTooth forum. Thanks, Blaze and SpookyTooth!
Taylor, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Phew! I almost bought into the scare.
Big 3 Ticket In Orange County, CA (dismissed) 2007/01/04 04:05
I got pulled over in Irvine, CA, and was cited for no helmet (that one might have stuck), no registration, and no insurance (I'm a licensed motorcycle rider, so he didn't cite me for not having a license). I don't know how it works everywhere else, but here, you can go in and plead guilty and they will probably reduce your fines, or you plead not guilty and they give you a court date to come back and plead your case. The judge dismissed all three citations without it going to trial. I had some really good arguments ready, but it's probably best that it ended right there. That's not to say that I won't be back in there some day if I get ticketed again.
The citing officer has to write the vehicle make and VIN on the ticket. It sounded silly when I (politely) told the judge that the vehicle make, "Nirve", is a bicycle company, and the VIN was actually just a number written down from a sticker on the bicycle. When I mentioned that there was a lot of gray area in the California vehicle codes, he said that the vehicle codes are "ALL gray area". The judge dismissed all 3 citations.
That said, probably the best thing a motorized bicycle rider in California can do is carry a copy of V.C. 4020 (
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d03/vc4020.htm )on your bike, the same as you would carry your registration in your car. It says very plainly that motorized bicycles do not need to be registered (which suggests that they do not need insured either, although I could never find that in the vehicle codes). There are other vehicle codes that might say it does need to be registered, because sometimes they are lumped in with mopeds, and that's where the confusion starts. Carrying this with you (or a page or two from the laws in your area if you're not in CA) should help a lot, even though the CA vehicle codes contradict each other like crazy.
If you do have to go to court, be respectful. I went in well dressed, and did not take the attitude that this whole thing was stupid and they court owed me an apology. I went in with the attitude that the vehicle codes are unclear and I have made every effort to research them and build my bike to conform to those codes. Yeah, I was still pretty ****ed that a motorcycle cop who had just finished ticketing two kids on skateboards wanted to cite me for not having registration and insurance on a motorized bicycle, but I didn't bring that anger in to court with me. If the officer would have just given me the helmet ticket, I would have paid it and left it at that, but the other two tickets were going overboard (in CA, even adults are required to wear helmets on anything motorized).
I spent a LOT of time researching the vehicle codes, and the one biggest thing that I learned is that the bikes we ride are just not accounted for in the vehicle codes here, so they will fall under whatever codes a police officer thinks is close enough to match what you are riding. I have been riding it for a year (so has my friend that I built another one for) and only got stopped that one time, so most cops just consider it to be legally the same as Go-Peds, which are all over the place here.
One nice thing, though, is the absolute clarity regarding the exact same bike built with an electric motor. Electrics are very clearly defined in V.C. 406(b), and they require a helmet (as does everything here), but no registration or insurance, max speed 20mph, max power 1000 watts. At least it's nice to know that there should be absolutely no ticketing problems with the electric bike I am building with the 600W, 48volt kit I am getting from Spookytooth (it arrives tomorrow, 1/4/07), not that police would even notice the motor on it.
Also concerning electrics: There is a federal law stating that they are to be treated exactly the same as a normal bicycle, but I think that only applies in regards to safety requirements when they are being manufactured. I don't think that law actually makes them street legal, it just means they have to be built to the same safety standards as bicycles, not mopeds or motorcycles. Legality will be determined by local laws.
I guess the most important thing is to just be safe and not drive like a total maniac. Once you break the 20mph barrier on a motorized bicycle, you are really rolling the dice with the vehicle codes. That's the one thing that would really hard to fight in court (unless you were going downhill- most codes state 20mph on level ground).
Anyway, I hope there is something in here that is useful to somebody some day. I guess the cops in my area are just not so keen on ticketing the bikes as they are in Arizona, but then the only two I have seen so far are the two I built myself.
