In case you don’t have 20 minutes to spare, you’d find that Neistat is an unrepentant flouter of the bike-lane law:

I’m never going to ride in bike lanes. Whether it’s legal or not going to change that. It’s just, is pursuing cyclists the best way to make the city, or anyplace, more bicycle-friendly?

So, although the law does not exist in the strict sense that he portrays it in the video, he likely was riding with complete indifference to the bike lanes when he got pulled over. He has a bigger point that he says he was trying to make with the video. And critics of the video (such as myself) are missing that bigger point. In retrospect, I think that Neistat missed his mark–but really by less than I originally argued.

It’s not the job of the police to hand out tickets for non-exixtant laws.

If I could let me re-frame your last post on this thread as “how the system should work” and you will get no disagreement from me on that point. But we would be remiss if we did not touch on how the system DOES work.

The first thing to understand that in court a police officer basically acts as an expert witness on not only what the law says but also the intent of the law. And when dealing solely with motor vehicles that mostly works out.

But most officers never received any bicycle specific training. So not only do they not understand the law but they also do not understand the intent of the law as bicycling law is a combination of safety and a desire to facilitate faster traffic. Thus opening the door to mistake facilitating faster traffic as a safety law.

I can’t find the link to a copy of the summary of bike “laws” given to NYPD but its just one line summarizes with none of the legal exceptions mentioned. What the police officer said in this case basically came straight off that cheat sheet.

The next issue is that this and other “police got the laws wrong” is constantly making the news and yet the police have not responded that they will correct the situation and will enforce the laws properly. Why should the onus to correct a police officer in what the law actually says be put on each and every cyclists? Especially if that onus REQUIRES taking time of work to go to court?

Do me a favor. Read it, and then tell me if I’m seeing contextual flexibility that isn’t there.

I talked by phone to Casey Neistat himself yesterday. I’ll be posting highlights of the interview this afternoon. Y’all come back now.

But you got it backwards, in this case it’s the parent scolding the kid in opening his mouth to put food IN. That is what the law says “never open your mouth to eat.”

Borat is sweet? NOW who’s funny.

BTW Niestat tweeted this today:

CaseyNeistat Casey Neistat
no shit just ran into the cop from the bike lanes movie. Totally nice guy, was psyched on our 2.6 million views

The whole thing is just funny, despite under/overtones.

The thing is, I think that video is funny. I must have said that five times so far. Perhaps there’s another layer of depth to this that I don’t see. Like people who don’t understand that Stephen Colbert performs The Colbert Report in character.

I’ll watch the video yet again with the understanding that Casey Neistat is a parody. He’s portraying one of those smart-ass guys we all know whose sardonic wit is so thick that he’s unaware of the blind spot in his sense of personal responsibility.

Wait…

Yes! It’s much funnier that way. He’s like Borat–if Borat were naive and impudent instead of naive and sweet.

Hopefully now I’m in on the entire joke.

“My number one motivation to make this movie was to be funny,” Neistat told The Huffington Post. “I’m not trying to rise up against the man. I’m just trying to make a funny movie.”

Nonetheless, I still think of this as the equivalent of a child being scolded for eating with his mouth not closed, and then he proceeds to demonstrate the impossibility of eating without ever opening his mouth. He comically pushes a loaded fork against his pursed lips, while mumbling, “Look! I can’t do it. It’s impossible!”

It’s juvenile, funny, oppositional, and leaves me unable to take Neistat seriously as a grown up.