Video of Train Commuter Being Arrested on San Francisco Peninsula

Don't mess with CalTrain!

"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=888656221275581946&hl=en"

What happened?
--------------
CalTrain allows bicycles, four per rack, in the bicycle car. A ticketed
passenger got on, put his bike in a rack with three bicycles and then
was ordered off the train by the conductor who told him there were
already 16 bicycles on the train and that the train was full. The
passenger refused to get off. The conductor called the police. The
passenger was arrested and hauled off to jail.

The police were none too pleased that someone was taking a video of
their actions.

What's not clear is whether their actually were 16 bicycles already on
the train. Often someone removes their bike in preparation to exit at
the next station, and there is a space for another bike, which
temporarily increases the total number of bikes past the 16 bike
capacity, but normally this does not cause any problems. It isn't known
if that happened in this case.

On Sep 26, 3:27*pm, SMS wrote:
Don't mess with CalTrain!

"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=888656221275581946&hl=en"

What happened?
--------------
CalTrain allows bicycles, four per rack, in the bicycle car. A ticketed
passenger got on, put his bike in a rack with three bicycles and then
was ordered off the train by the conductor who told him there were
already 16 bicycles on the train and that the train was full. The
passenger refused to get off. The conductor called the police. The
passenger was arrested and hauled off to jail.

The police were none too pleased that someone was taking a video of
their actions.

What's not clear is whether their actually were 16 bicycles already on
the train. Often someone removes their bike in preparation to exit at
the next station, and there is a space for another bike, which
temporarily increases the total number of bikes past the 16 bike
capacity, but normally this does not cause any problems. It isn't known
if that happened in this case.


Don't mess with bike riders in SF. Next thing you know there'll be a
bike demonstration.

jdoe wrote:

the conductor was being anal, who really cares? why post this in a
travel news group?

Uh, because it's directly related to travel.

try ba.transit

No such group.

Why did you have to post it anyway, you're not the local news provider.

"SMS" a écrit dans le message de
...
jdoe wrote:

the conductor was being anal, who really cares? why post this in a
travel news group?

Uh, because it's directly related to travel.

try ba.transit

No such group.

"Runge12" wrote in message
...
Why did you have to post it anyway, you're not the local news provider.

"SMS" a écrit dans le message de
...
jdoe wrote:

the conductor was being anal, who really cares? why post this in a
travel news group?

Uh, because it's directly related to travel.

try ba.transit

No such group.

Suppose someone was intending to visit the area, with a bicycle, and wanted
to use the train to do some longer distance travel? They are now aware that
they can be arrested for trying to put their bicycle on a train.

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:18:14 +0100, Stephen Clark wrote:
"Runge12" wrote in message
...
Why did you have to post it anyway, you're not the local news provider.

"SMS" a écrit dans le message de
...
jdoe wrote:

the conductor was being anal, who really cares? why post this in a
travel news group?

Uh, because it's directly related to travel.

try ba.transit

No such group.

Suppose someone was intending to visit the area, with a bicycle, and wanted
to use the train to do some longer distance travel? They are now aware that
they can be arrested for trying to put their bicycle on a train.

The moron only got arrested for being beligerant. If he had complied, he
wouldn't have been arrested. Cops don't have time for such jackasses.

If the bike racks are full, wait for the next train. Or lock it up and
do without.

AZ Nomad wrote:
On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:18:14 +0100, Stephen Clark wrote:

try ba.transit
No such group.
Suppose someone was intending to visit the area, with a bicycle, and wanted
to use the train to do some longer distance travel? They are now aware that
they can be arrested for trying to put their bicycle on a train.

The moron only got arrested for being beligerant. If he had complied, he
wouldn't have been arrested. Cops don't have time for such jackasses.

I watched the video and didn't get the impression that he was being
belligerent. He seemed to be quite calm and rational. When he asked why
he was being arrested the cop said it was delaying the train. Since
they weren't going to allow him on the train it could have left. He
wasn't the one who delayed the train. Another passenger questioned the
officers and policy.

One of the comments posted with the video indicated there is a limit of
4 bikes per rack and he put his bike on a rack that had 3 others.....
that makes 4 in my books.


The cops were being dicks when they hassled the guy taking the video.
It was a public place and he was not interferring.



If the bike racks are full, wait for the next train. Or lock it up and
do without.

The cops were being dicks when they hassled the guy taking the video. It
was a public place and he was not interferring.


I think the police could of asked for their faces to be pixelated to avoid
identification.

Stephen Clark wrote:
The cops were being dicks when they hassled the guy taking the video. It
was a public place and he was not interferring.


I think the police could of asked for their faces to be pixelated to avoid
identification.


One of them made a point of sticking his face in front of the camera.
That was a little out of line for a professional.

AZ Nomad wrote:

The moron only got arrested for being beligerant. If he had complied, he
wouldn't have been arrested. Cops don't have time for such jackasses.

If the bike racks are full, wait for the next train. Or lock it up and
do without.

You missed the whole point. The signs on the train say 4 bikes per rack.
He put his bike on a rack with 3 bikes. He complied with the rules. The
conductor made up a new rule on the spot. Apparently elsewhere on the
train there were 5 bikes on a rack so someone else had violated the 4
bikes per rack rule, and the conductor mistakenly believed that the rule
was not 4 bikes per rack, but rather 16 bikes per bike car (which is
_not_ a posted rule.

The conductor screwed up by allowing five bikes in one rack earlier in
the trip. All he had to say to the passenger was that he had to get off
because a rack with five bikes was going to have one bike moved to the
rack with three bikes, sorry about the confusion. Instead the conductor
went on a power trip and over-reacted. The conductor needs to be
disciplined, and perhaps terminated, if this wasn't the first incident.