MARKED

Today a cop pulled me over for the first time in my life. My crime? Running a light. On my bike. 5 minutes earlier I had run a stop sign and cut off a motorist. He honked, and I felt bad, mentally promising to make a full stop next time. At the light at Center and Oxford, an intersection with heavy pedestrian traffic, I slowed, let the walkers walk, checked for cars, and rolled on through the red. I heard a siren squeak behind me, and the mini-van in front pulled over. I passed, but the cruiser squeaked again, this time accompanied by a tinny, “You on the bike.”

Me, on this bike?”

“Yes, you on that bike.”

“Bike?”

“Bike.”

So I sat there, on my bike, wearing my dorky helmet, as the cop wrote me a ticket, and the hordes of commuters and students gawked. One guy stopped, stared, and asked, “What did you do?” “Ran a stop sign.” “Actually, it was a light,” amended the cop. “I’ve never seen anyone get pulled over on a bike before,” said the gawker.

Having given me my little yellow slip of shame, the cop justified his anality: he had once seen a pedestrian killed by a cyclist who ran a light. Well, that’s just swell. “No one’s going to pull you over for running stop sign going up a hill,” he said, “and 9 times out of 10 you can get away with it anyway, even on Telegraph. But you should always stop.” Well, I’ve been riding to work for over a year now, and I must run at least 4 lights a day. Not only have I never been pulled over, but I have never seen anyone get pulled over, never even heard of it. More like 99 in 100. Or 999 in 1000. Of course, now I feel a big red letter on my chest (R(ed light running)? B(icycle abuse)?), a sign that I am not just that unlucky victim of probability, but that I was specially selected, that my guilt exceeds that of every other Berkeley cyclist, that I am, in fact, uniquely evil. Thus, I will be stopping at every stop sign, every red light for the foreseeable future, because this morning wasn’t just bad luck. It was a sign.