Seattle cyclists complain they get ticketed when they break the law

So you won’t believe why bicyclists are apparently upset. They’re mad that they get tickets when they break the law.

So according to Gene Balk at The Seattle Times, one particular officer by the name of Glen Mulkey in the Seattle Police Department has been handing out a ton of bike tickets to people breaking the law.

Over an eight-year period, he’s issued 1,118 tickets, which is about 124 tickets a year. In fact, he wrote a quarter of all the bike tickets in that time period. And last year, he apparently issued over half of the bike tickets.

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The tickets mostly have to do with riding without a helmet, which is illegal because it’s dangerous. You get hit with a fine of $102.

I know a lot of folks in the bicycle community think forcing helmets keeps people from biking, but it’s the same bogus argument that telling people they have to wear seat belts keeps people from driving.

It’s a law that saves lives and protects people.

Now some bicyclists are pretty upset they’re getting tickets. Cory Bennion has received 30 tickets; 17 of those were written by Officer Mulkey and almost all of them had to do with not wearing a helmet.

And the reason he won’t wear a helmet? He doesn’t want to. The Times reports:

The most obvious reason Bennion doesn’t wear a helmet — and nearly every cyclist will find this relatable — is that he doesn’t like them.

But he also points out that he is hyper-aware of his surroundings when he rides, and — simply put — he knows what he’s doing. Those two qualities, he feels, are far more important to safety than merely wearing a helmet. And they have kept him basically injury-free in 15 years of working as a messenger downtown.

And it’s also a matter of principle. “It should be a choice,” Bennion says — and in fact, when he began messengering in 2000, it was. King County’s helmet law was not extended to Seattle until 2003.

Now, some in the bike activist community are going after the officer; they don’t like that he gives out tickets.

But this officer is a hero. Bicyclists in this town have decided long ago that they’re not going to follow the law.

Not all bicyclists, but a lot of them, choose not to wear helmets. They choose not to stop at red lights or stop signs. They choose to just cut in and out of traffic without any warning and they don’t wear reflective gear at night. They constantly complain about how unsafe it is with drivers who don’t follow the law, putting their lives on the line.

Well, in a lot of cases, they put their own lives on the line. Now they can be as sanctimonious as they want, but they will always lose in a war with a car. If you get hit by a car &#8212 because, for instance, you choose not to stop at a light or you ride right through an intersection &#8212 if you get hit, you will lose 100 percent of the time.

So Officer Mulkey should be championed and celebrated. He’s doing his part to save lives.