Got pulled over on my skateboard, fined $138 plus 2 points on my license - court tomorrow, how can I beat this ticket?

This is what I am going to say and I’ll let you all know what happens:

The laws for electric skateboards are somewhat undefined and vague in NYC - on April 3rd Mayor De Blasio recently made pedal assist electric bikes legal, while two-wheeled hoverboards remain illegal. There is no mention of electric skateboards, which probably fall somewhere in between the two

I ride an electric skateboard for a number of reasons: they are better for the environment, less expensive, and more time efficient than a taxi, uber, or owning your own car. Having said that, I understand that they can be potentially dangerous - which, I imagine, is why the officer gave me a ticket.

I’m not here to dispute the fine, although I’m not sure I deserve it. I’m here to dispute receiving points on my license. Electric skateboards can be legally purchased in NYC without a license. And if my exact same offence was committed by someone who is not licensed to drive a car, then their punishment would have been much less severe because a person can’t receive points on a non-existent drivers license.

I would also like to point out that I did in fact leave the bike lane and move into the car lane briefly, and probably without using a hand signal. But I did so in order to avoid road debris from construction, a handicap ramp set up in the middle of the bike lane, and a man who seemed to be mopping the bike lane. It was early on Sunday morning so there was very little traffic and I’m sure I checked to make sure there weren’t any cars coming because I wouldn’t have wanted to get hit by one. I have photos on my phone of all of the obstructions I mentioned. These photos are all time stamped and location stamped on my iphone, and will match the time and location of the ticket

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Honestly, I’m not doing anything tomorrow. I might pull up.

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Lol I guess not the days I was there then. :grin:

just looked at your profile - are you the person with dual lhb motors, abec 107s, 1 ollin & 1 maytech vesc and lipo batteries that i met by central park earlier today?

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Good luck I’m not sure they’ll give you the platform to get all of that out usually when I’ve been to court they just want to hear your guilty or not guilty plea and then go from there if you go not guilty then there’s a chance they’ll want to hear you out but I think typically you’ll just get another court date to come present your case. Either way good to have a plan and sounds reasonable to me, hope it works out alright. Also side note I don’t have a license (it’s a long story involves a police chase… allegedly) when I was stopped on my board (for jumping on a sidewalk when it started raining) I was worried that was going to be something they’d throw at me, but when they called it in and cop who was talking with me just let it go.


Guess point being I think you’re logically in the right. How is it you’re getting punished for having a license, doesn’t make much sense.

the cops retarded… They’ve got to dismiss this bc he’s first of all being bloody inconsiderate and rude

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Going against the grain here but:

In order to get your license you did a test that proves you know the road rules where your license is valid. In a car, motorcycle or even on a push bike you need to indicate when you change lanes on a road way. You broke the rules, you will lose points because you have already proven (license test) that you should know better. There is no talking your way out of it based on it isn’t fair. Maybe you might be able to argue some kind of financial hardship if losing the points would have a significantly greater impact on you than the average person (and fall on the judges mercy) but I doubt it.

This is very vague. Wonder if one can get off with a doctors note for something like ADHD.

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I hope they dismiss the ticket, and don’t plead guilty as this will be the norm for all Eskaters in NYC. this is concerning to me as I also ride my board in the city often and so far I had good luck with cops but still concerning if they stop me & try to ticket me

Fuck that…Do electric bikes have to be registered? This cop is showing an obvious bias against skateboards.

I would promise not to ride like an idiot ever again and obey the same traffic laws that bikes do and leave it at that.

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Crossing my fingers you have a cool judge

Rooting for you

Most likely they will be happy to take the fine and will waive the points.

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I got yelled at by a cop when I was speeding 30+ in a 25mph zone I came back later down the same road not going as fast and the same cop stopped me but he was cool he was just curious about the board even asked if I could build him one, I pointed him to the this forum let’s see if he joins us :slight_smile:

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Hell yeah! Nice to meet you again bro

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A little anticlimactic but the case has now been postponed until november because i didnt print out the photographic evidence. So presuming i dont forget about this court date 5 months in the future i will check back then

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Pretty ridiculous the Judge would even waste his/her time with this. I would have been like " dont ride in the streets/bike lane anymore " CASE DISMISSED :grinning:

SO last night on our Sacramento group ride this may or may not have happened… We ran into a Ranger…she pulled Bart over at like 30mph during a speed run on the bike trail, said “hey those are not allowed!” I rolled up and handed her a printed copy of CALI law AB604, highlighted the important part giving us rights to ride anywhere an ebike is allowed, Bart pulled up a letter on his phone from her boss, the head ranger in sac county. The letter says we were legal and to print out the letter to show to other rangers. lol…she looked at me and said “This smells like weed?” as she smelled the printed copy of 604…so I did what I do best…I smiled and asked “Well does it at least smell like good weed?”…and she goes…sure does…handed it back to me and let us ride on…

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@squishy654 that’s beautiful :joy::joy:

Best part of the story hahah

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So what was the result of the case? :smile:

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