now i definitely ride even more carefully in regard to stops signs – but they do get rolled. if there is a car ANYWHERE, even back up the road, i really make a show of stopping forward motion. partly because i think cars have learned to expect anything from bikes, usually total disregard for all laws. so i want to make a point – some of us ride with respect for normal right of way. it’s my one-man PR campaign.

but i’m not stopping, putting my foot down for three seconds or whatever. that’s just retarded…

and some cops wonder why they get shot at?

in your situation I would have also asked if I had endangered anyone with my actions. Wouldn’t have changed the a$$hats mind probably, but you could also remind him of all the times you have had to take evasive action against drivers txting while driving, talking on the cell while driving, making illegal lane changes—just to name a few.

my feeling is, if you’re riding safely and not endangering anyone else actively, then roll and/or use your listed concepts. There will always be times we all make mistakes, but ticketing someone who isn’t a yahoo riding down the middle of Wilshire Blvd during rush hour in and out of cars, against lights and hopping all over disrupting traffic—I think is just dense. LAPD won’t catch every scofflaw, but they need to pick their battles better.

My technique is to brake to the point that all forward momentum ceases, but with enough energy that I’ll still roll forward if I let go of the brakes. If there’s opposing traffic, I’ll wait until I have right-of-way; if not, I’ll go right away.

That seems to be enough to satisfy the police, since I’ve done it right next to patrol cars — though you never know when you’ll catch a cop in a bad mood or one who just doesn’t like bikes.

But to the righteous officers assigned to sleepy little upscale hamlets like Larchmont Village, they mostly have nothing better to do — literally.

After moving back to LA from SF I got my only ‘Rolling’ ticket (so far) on my bicycle from a cop in West Covina 15 years ago. Admittedly, I had grown acustomed to riding in a San Francisco style and negected to adjust to the uptight standards of West Covina.

It has everything to do with LA’s car-centric lifestyle. Had the officer been a bicycle rider himself, he would have realized how futile stopping at every stopsign is, and what a low-level threat to public safety a bike rolling a stop sign in a semi-residential neighborhood is. That’s why it surpises me that an LAPD Officer took the time to stop you when there are so many car drivers driving with a celphone to their ear, texting and running the stopsigns and red lights around Larchmont.

At a two-way stop I will always slow and make sure the intersection is clear and stop or yield if it isn’t or won’t be. For a four-way stop I will readily halt or give priority to cross traffic of any kind is arriving at the same time or before I do.

My rules are simple: Approach every intersection with awareness and caution, and stop or yield if there’s reason to. If there isn’t, roll it — and expect to encounter the Officer Bookers of the force once every several thousand violations.