(A teenage girl receives a ticket in Santa Monica for not coming to a full and complete stop at a stop sign and a warning for riding without a helmet as a minor.)
Some readers may recall there was a debate between cyclists and the City of Los Angeles over the use of a local municipal code on bicycle licensing, primarily a program started long ago for theft deterrence and returning stolen bikes, instead being used as a way for the LAPD to harass cyclists and write citations. After pressure from the cycling community at a series of city council meetings and the one L.A. police station with bike licenses being overwhelmed for license requests they were not prepared to fulfill, a moratorium was put in place to prevent any further issuing of tickets under the law.This summer
, the law was taken off the books in Los Angeles.
I have not heard of a specific ticketing incident for riding without a bicycle license in Santa Monica, but I started to research things a little. My interest got peaked when I was walking by a police office in downtown Santa Monica and a flier was posted in the window concerning bicycle licensing. This immediately raised a red flag to me considering the drama that played out over bicycle licensing in Los Angeles. So I started to look it up in the
Santa Monica municipal code, a bookmark I keep handy next to the
California Vehicle Code.
Santa Monica does have a bicycle licensing law on the books
that includes some disturbing details that would seem to be in conflict with the California laws that govern the implementation of local bicycle licensing. I think it is also worth pointing out here that the C.V.C.
grants city or county governments the right to establish bicycle licensing, and gives guidelines and certain restrictions for such systems. The C.V.C.
does not require bicycle licenses state wide, and does not impose any restrictions of it's own
upon bicycle riding without a license unless required by a local government. This is in sharp contrast with the bicycle license page of the
Santa Monica government web site (buried under finance) which reads "The State of California requires a bicycle license for any bicycle used on any street." I cannot find anything in the list of laws in the C.V.C. concerning bicycles to back up such a claim. Thus it would appear the Santa Monica government website is lying. To me this suggests the Santa Monica government is passing the buck by implying it is the State that makes this a requirement when in fact it is the city's fault you are required to have a license. The State allows cities to do this, but it does not require that they do.
So what are those disturbing details in the
Santa Monica municipal code on Bicycle licensing? How about for starters
this statement
, "shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding two hundred fifty dollars". Wait a minute, in the California Vehicle code it specifically states in C.V.C. Division 16.7 - Registration and Licensing of Bicycles,
Section 39011; "No fine imposed for any violation of an ordinance or resolution, which is adopted pursuant to this division, shall exceed ten dollars ($10)". So the state of California says fines for not having a bicycle license in a municipality that require them should not exceed $10, but Santa Monica thinks up to $250 is a suitable amount. I'm not a legal expert, but something seems fishy here.
And it only gets worse from here. The Santa Monica law goes on to say the infraction may also be made a "misdemeanor, which shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars per violation". So a fine of $10 for not having an official sticker on your bike that costs $3 has ballooned to something that could potentially cost you $1000 and show up on your criminal record in Santa Monica. But that's not all folks, you could also get "imprisonment in the County Jail for a period not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment."
Now we have truly stepped into the world of the absurd. The bicycle licensing law is barely known to anyone, and I'm sure very few of the thousands of cyclists who pour through the town both from within and from popular cycling neighboring areas such as Venice Beach
have ever heard of it. Yet nearly all of them,
myself included, are law breakers within Santa Monica city limits for not having an official sticker. All those happy people riding home from the Farmers Market with baskets full of fresh vegetables, a bunch of outlaws. Chances are you, my readership, concentrated most heavily in Santa Monica and neighboring areas, are at risk for police harassment at anytime in Santa Monica borders for simply riding a bicycle without a special sticker on it.
(Santa Claus receives a ticket for riding too far to left on the roadway. Ticket thrown out in court after a written declaration defense.)
The
reality of being detained for lack of a bicycle license is probably very slim
. However if an officer doesn't like you for any other reason, maybe you look homeless, maybe an officer thinks you look like an anarchist, maybe he just plain doesn't like you dressing like Santa Claus, the officer could use a bicycling licensing violation as a pretense to detain you in the absence of any legitimate traffic violations. Thus Santa Monica, voted a Bronze "Bicycle Friendly" city by the League of American Cyclists, empowers it's police force with the ability to harass almost any cyclist on the road by making nearly every cyclist in it's borders a criminal.
Bicycle licensing as it currently exists, where it exists, is like a license plate, not a driver license, and has nothing to do with educational requirements or operation of a bicycle. It is simply a means to identify ownership. It is a legal requirement, however there is almost no attempt at communicating this requirement. You don't hear about it at bike shops, you don't hear about it at city events, and you typically won't hear about it existing at all unless you know where to dig as I just started doing.
What is also odd here, is that while punishment is clearly spelled out and quite severe for not having a bicycle license sticker, not having a license plate on a car is treated as a parking ticket if you are away from the vehicle, and a fix it ticket if you are present. This is what I gathered from reading accounts of license plate violations and every article I could find on the topic. I had trouble tracking down specific official information for fines and punishment but I'm guessing a misdemeanor and 6 months jail time are not potential punishments for the lack of of license plate, and yet it is for a bicycle sticker in Santa Monica. According to an LAPD police woman asked about tickets for lack of a license plate on a car it is a $25 fine as a parking ticket and can cost about $100 as a fix it ticket. This is of course backwards considering an automobile license plate is essential in tracking down potentially fatal hit and run drivers, while incidents of bicycles severely injuring or killing others is incredibly rare. Not that a bicycle license could serve much purpose in identification in a hit and run as they are too small to read without close inspection.
There is no useful purpose for bicycle registration apart from a means for the police to return stolen bicycles, a goal somewhat suspect since thieves routinely remove all stickers and may even grind down serial numbers on bicycles. If the fee were raised it could perhaps become a revenue stream for bicycle improvements, but a high fee would discourage ridership, which is already much slimmer than it should be and most progressive city planners recognize the benefits of increased bicycle ridership in lowering congestion and parking demands. Also if the fee were more significant it would become quite taxing for those of us who own multiple bikes (I have 5 bikes at present), which is easier to do than owning multiple cars, especially if you are aren't paying into car ownership. So if the only useful thing about our bicycle license legislation is to return stolen bicycles, which it mostly fails to do and
private companies can do better, why is it written to be so punitive to cyclists and a mandatory requirement to ride? It makes no sense any way I look at it, and even if it were effective at returning bicycles it should be a voluntary program.
Considering that the City of Los Angeles tossed it's bicycle license requirement legislation after
its ridicules nature was exposed in public forum, this puts Santa Monica as the
odd one out in this regard. Santa Monica is relatively small independent municipality surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, and it makes no sense for Santa Monica to be so radically different in this regard. Especially since Santa Monica makes it a point of pride of being bicycle friendly. Empowering the S.M.P.D. with the means to harass almost any cyclist traveling in it's borders with the threat of severe fines or even jail time does not sound very bicycle friendly to me.
This law should be removed from the books, and I intend to contact the City Council on this issue. If it becomes necessary perhaps we can start a petition and gather a presence at a future Council meeting to bring this absurd legislation to light. The success of revoking the bicycle licensing program in L.A. sets a great precedent for scraping it in Santa Monica. My hunch is this law, started in the 70's and last updated in 1995, is probably completely off the radar of most city officials. Antiquated laws sitting around on the books
are nothing new,
for example Santa Monica's
legislation concerning safe operating speeds for mounted horses and other animals. However horseback riding in Santa Monica is something I have never seen, while bicycle travel is thriving component of transportation here. As such, the laws concerning bicycle travel should be up to date, fair, and reasonable. The fact that thousands of people are regularly in violation of the law simply by riding a bicycle in Santa Monica without an official sticker
is not an acceptable situation.
Update:Alex Thompson has added his 2 cents to the matter, and also uncovered an additional C.V.C. that specifies that local bicycle licensing requirements to ride are to
apply to residents, however the Santa Monica law is written to apply to everyone. Also handy
he includes the appropriate city e-mail addresses if you want to let the city know how you feel about this law.
