An Addendum

Directions on the ticket say that to plead “not guilty” you need to mail the ticket and your plea within 48 hours. But there’s no mailing address on the ticket. There is no phone number on the ticket to ask about a mailing address. The other way to plead not guilty (or guilty for that matter) is to “appear in person or by counsel on the date and time set for appearance at the Court and location specified on the face of this Summons.” The “court location” space on the face of the summons is blank; there is NO court location on the ticket. In sum: the ticket tells you what to do but NOT how to do it. It doesn’t even tell you where to find that information.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon digging around the NYPD and Brooklyn court websites.

Good. Lord.

I haven’t been to such a poorly maintained and designed website since, like, 1998. The phone numbers listed were either unanswered (by human or machine) or straight-up disconnected. The links that supposedly lead to the info I needed were all broken. But damned if they don’t have their own podcast.

Now, I didn’t go to no durn Ivy league school or nothin’, but I think I’m a reasonably intelligent guy. If I can’t figure this out, I don’t see how your average thug or petty criminal could…I mean, if they were so inclined.

And of course, if you fail to answer the summons, you get a warrant. One gets the impression they WANT people to screw up.

Lastly, I present to you, Dear Reader, more evidence that the NYPD apparently has it in for bikes and bikers…
…and a nice little film of the incident to boot.