I'd anticpate less trouble from Cambridge cops than MBTA cops, since it is their jurisdiction.<br><br>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 31/08/05, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:contraelolvido@riseup.net">contraelolvido@riseup.net</a></b> <<a href="mailto:contraelolvido@riseup.net">contraelolvido@riseup.net
</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> I don't understand why he doesn't think going through the tunnel is<br>> illegal.<br>> If we are riding on the street, we are considered a legal vehicle. Bound
<br>> by<br>> all the constraints of a motorcycle, car, bus, etc.<br><br>This is not true at all, and only goes to show how little you know of the<br>law. Are bike's required to follow minimum speed limits (i believe 20
<br>below maximum)? Do bike's have to be register, or inspected, or licensed?<br>Are bike's allowed to pass on the left or the right? I could go on.<br><br>Bike's have to follow *some, but not all* equivalent, not equal, rules to
<br>other vehicles. The tunnel's sign prohibits motor vehicles and pedestrians<br>(i believe), which are both strict legal categories under which bikes<br>don't fall.<br><br>Furthermore even if bikes were applicable, it isn't a crime nor an
<br>arrestable offense. It's a traffic violation (like a speeding ticket). The<br>police had no authority to arrest bikers in traffic stops (even if you<br>refused to ID yourself) as of last year-ish (making the traffic ticket
<br>unenforceable). Now they do, thanks to massbike - looking out for us.<br><br>> Now going through the tunnel is a a different story. If the cops got<br>> organized to come down on CM, they would know that we were going to end up
<br>> there at some point every month.<br><br>Or if the cops got organized in brookline/boston/cambridge they could<br>arrest the mass on the massave bridge/copley sq/harvard st. Do you really<br>think that cambridge police are going to have the dozens of officers
<br>required for mass arrest sitting around waiting by the tunnel (hidden from<br>view of course) for three or four hours every month on the chance that the<br>mass *might* come by (they'd have to be waiting since we go through so
<br>fast). Then, on top of that, does cambridge have the capacity to arrest<br>3/400 bikers at once, which put a huge strain even on New York friggin<br>City's police? Especially when they know that the arrests won't be upheld?
<br>Come on, grow up.<br><br>> He says that the police have no right to arrest us (true), and that the<br>> cops<br>> don't have the power to arrest us (false). That's just naive. Cops can<br>> take you downtown anytime they want (New York CM).
<br><br>Ya and how many of those arrests were sustained? If your logic is that<br>they can arrest you at any point for any reason then I agree with you,<br>cops have unwieldy power and often abuse it. But If you're going to use
<br>that as excuse not to do something you have every legal right to do<br>(without getting arrested at least), then I disagree with you. A cop<br>*could* arrest you for any number of biking activities that they don't<br>
understand or piss them off.<br><br>> Prognosis: Internet lurker that just likes to stir things up<br>> Diagnosis: Another filter on my spam blocker.<br><br>Which would make sense if I started this conversation... And I assume that
<br>your response to people disagreeing with you is to block them? It must be<br>lonely, lonely, ignorant life you live. It could also explain why, after<br>dozens of conversations on this list, you still don't understand how the
<br>mass laws effecting bikes work.<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Boston Critical Mass mailing list<br><a href="mailto:list@bostoncriticalmass.org">list@bostoncriticalmass.org</a><br><a href="http://bostoncriticalmass.org/list">
http://bostoncriticalmass.org/list</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br><br>-- <br>Anne Wolfe, LL.M.<br>Mobile: ( 077484) 76599 <br>"In canon law (probably not a course you attended) there is something<br>called "an occasion of sin." --anyway, you are just an
<br>"occasion of wacky." -- John Hildebidle, Bard of Porter Square<br>