Get a ticket for not having a light on your bike?
It seems the Pima County Sheriff’s Department has been giving people tickets for not having lights on their bikes in the daytime. If this happens to you, it is important to fight the ticket! Also, call me so I know how frequently this is happening.
According to the statute, you need a light on “a bicycle that is used at nighttime.”
“Nighttime” is defined at A.R.S. Section 1-215 to be “the period between sunset and sunrise.”
I have one client who got this ticket at 5:38 P.M. on a day when the sunset was at 5:48. (Also, he was given this ticket after getting struck by a car about thirty minutes earlier, and as his bike lay in a mangled heap on the pavement and he was being prepared for transport to the hospital.)
If you get stopped during the day, you might want to mention this to the officer. Also, make note of the time the instant you are stopped.
–Erik Ryberg
February 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Please tell me they didn’t really give an equipment ticket to an injured cyclist before he was transported to a hospital, that it was just an exageration
February 10th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Sorry, no can do. It was not an exaggeration. However, the cyclist will be okay. He had a dislocated shoulder and a pretty messed up finger, and a badly bruised leg plus a lot of overall scrapes and bruises. But it looks like nothing was broken.
-ER
February 11th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Dear Eric
A friend of mine who lives near UofA was given a ticket one evening a few years ago for not wearing a helmet. My friend is a dentist and originally from Panama. He felt it was racial profiling really–but can you get a ticket for not wearing a helmet?
I’m not sure if he paid the fine or what he did.
Cheers,
Bruce
February 11th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
He can get a ticket if he is under 18 and not wearing a helmet. Otherwise no. Unless they let young teenagers become dentists in Panama, it seems likely that he was inappropriately charged.
EBR
February 12th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Sundown time in Tucson depends on if you’re consulting a computer screen or looking at the western horizon. The sun slips mover the Tucson Mountains sooner than the official sundown time for the season. Do, by all means, get a light a light for your bike and use it.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Um, that’s true, but it is necessary to have a standard sundown time or tickets would be given arbitrarily. If I stand in the right place downtown, the sun will never rise and never set, because I will always be in the shade of a building, just as we are shaded by the mountains for some time before the “official” sunset.
The point here is that my guy was given a ticket for an offense that he did not commit and that had nothing to do with his accident.
ER
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Was there ever any resolution to this citation?
February 26th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Hey AZbikelaw, not yet, but I’ll let you know. I’m filing a motion to dismiss and we’ll see what happens.
–EBR