Ranger speed trap on Stevens Canyon trail

[SCTreeHugger]

I went out for an early evening ride at Stevens Canyon yesterday. Nice ride. I was the only one out riding at the time.

The rangers were sitting at the bottom of a steep descent around a corner with radar guns in hand. There were 2 rangers with 2 vehicles positioned to take off in either direction (I'm guessing) in case you decide to not stop for the speeding ticket.

I'm calling this a speed trap because it's almost impossible to go 15 mph down that section of the trail unless you REALLY hold down on the brakes. I passed them on the way up so I knew where to slow down, but pretty lame is you ask me.

[kev1n]

Yeah, you gotta watch it on the doubletrack around there. I've never seen MidPen rangers with speed traps on singletrack though.

[zorg]

I went out for an early evening ride at Stevens Canyon yesterday. Nice ride. I was the only one out riding at the time.

The rangers were sitting at the bottom of a steep descent around a corner with radar guns in hand. There were 2 rangers with 2 vehicles positioned to take off in either direction (I'm guessing) in case you decide to not stop for the speeding ticket.

I'm calling this a speed trap because it's almost impossible to go 15 mph down that section of the trail unless you REALLY hold down on the brakes. I passed them on the way up so I knew where to slow down, but pretty lame is you ask me.

2 possibilities: either the open space district really hates bikers, or we're just a way to raise money for the district. Personnally, I'd rather see the rangers do something useful in the park than sit on their fat ass handing out tickets, but that's just me...

[fc]

ahh yes. the lardass rangers are back with their speedtrap.

This is midpen district. Land of the aggro rangers and 15 mph speeding tickets.





That's Colin, taking one for the team... there were 30 of us. He got the ticket reversed.

fc

[derek]

Yeah, you gotta watch it on the doubletrack around there. I've never seen MidPen rangers with speed traps on singletrack though.

Just because you see them most of the time on doubletrack don't assume they are never on singletrack. Although much more difficult to get above the 15 MPH on the singletrack I have seen rangers on singletrack in Skeggs on a few occasions. Once near the bottom of the Resolution where it opens up, and the other time on Crosscut (never know why she was there).

Anyways, ride safe.

-Derek

[Scarpa]

How can they enforce a speed law when bikes don't have speedometers?

[kev1n]

i dunno, but I stopped running a speedometer on my trail bike just because it makes it way easier to talk my way out of that ****. kinda hard to play dumb about speed when it's displayed in your handlebars...

[sirkrameroy]

i dunno, but I stopped running a speedometer on my trail bike just because it makes it way easier to talk my way out of that ****. kinda hard to play dumb about speed when it's displayed in your handlebars...

This is one of the reasons why you will almost always win if you contest the ticket. The traffic court judges don't know what to make of a bicycle speeding ticket, and so they usually throw them out on face. I'm in the process of contesting one now, and I even told the ranger as he was giving me the ticket that it wouldn't hold up. He didn't really like that...

[derek]

How can they enforce a speed law when bikes don't have speedometers?

I'm not a lawyer or anything (where's Jed?) but I don't thank that argument is going to work.

You can try and use logic with the rangers but that didn't work for us. My buddy got a ticket in Skegg's at the top of Manzanita and the ranger kept telling us that all bikes should have speedometers (which my buddy's did) and that we should know our speeds at all times. Unfortunately he was a bit thick-headed when we argued that it was unsafe to be staring at the speed as you go downhill.

-Derek

[grrrah]

How about this argument.

Most cities are carefull and only give tickets in certain spots where there have been recent speed surveys, monitoring of 85th percentiles speeds, certain road widths, and other things that have to line up in order for a ticket to hold in court.

If the same laws apply, one could claim that there is no publicly documented speed survey of that trail and direction of travel.

For example, I know certain streets that are posted for 30 mph, but cops wont ticket if you drive 45 mph down that street because it wont hold in court.

[Zen_Turtle]

sorry I'm a little slow here... are there speed limits on the trails??

I've never seen one posted....

...seriously...

[Ryan G.]

shoot I set mine at km/h!

does that hold weight in court

[Gakster]

sorry I'm a little slow here... are there speed limits on the trails??

I've never seen one posted....

...seriously...

http://www.openspace.org/activities/..._8sept2004.pdf

Section 500.1
"
500.1 Trail Use Speed Limit. All users of District Lands shall comply with all established trail use speed limits. The maximum speed for all trail uses is 15 miles per hour, unless otherwise posted. Bicyclists and equestrians are required to slow to 5 miles per hour when passing others or approaching blind turns.
"

Cheers.

[KONA_in_SB]

shoot I set mine at km/h!

does that hold weight in court

Maybe...if you got a ticket for riding too slow. 15 km/hr is only about 9 mph.

[SCTreeHugger]

sorry I'm a little slow here... are there speed limits on the trails??

I've never seen one posted....

...seriously...

If you are riding on any trail in the open space district (http://www.openspace.org) you are subject to a 15 mph speed limit. So pretty much all trails have a 15 mph speed limit.

Does anyone know if the rangers are hourly or salary workers? It should be pretty easy to work around their schedules.

[Ryan G.]

that be true for me on singletrack...what is the conversion of km/h to mph?

[OhSchitt]

How can they enforce a speed law when bikes don't have speedometers?

Well, unless they make Speedometers standard equipment on all bikes, it's stupid to be handing out tickets, warnings okay, but tickets?

BTW, are there rangers out at Kennedy?

I've seen them on St. Joe's before, havn't been on Kennedy enough.

[Jorgemonkey]

I think its just dumb. Why don't they ticket hikers for hiking off the trail? I've almost hit two or three hikers because they decided to walk down the hill through the trees instead of following the switchbacks, and it scared the crap out of them as well as me.

Don't get me wrong, the park rangers have their job to do and I've met/had conversations with some really cool ones, but I warn all mtn bikers whenever I see one on the trail.

[CheapWhine]

Here's a math question:
If riders must slow to 5mph to pass others on the trail, does this mean that you can't ever pass a runner who runs 5mph?