Woman Riding on the Wrong Side of Figueroa Learns Expensive Lesson

“Every lane is a bike lane,” says a Metro sign along Figueroa Street, near the broad Marmion Way crossing.

Don’t take the declaration literally, though—especially if you happen to be biking on the wrong side of the road—or you might end up with a big ticket from the Los Angeles Police Department.

That was what happened to a woman riding a bike on Figueroa, a few blocks north of the Metro sign, shortly before noon on Monday. An LAPD motorcycle officer stopped her and gave her a ticket for riding on the northbound side of Figueroa—while heading south.

The woman, who identified herself only as Desiree, said she was coming from Sycamore Park and veered off to the wrong side of Figueroa when she reached Avenue 43 because here brakes weren’t working. Neither were the traffic lights at the time.

As she told it to Highland Park-Mt. Washington Patch, the crossing was pretty chaotic. And for some reason that the motorcycle cop clearly didn’t buy, she took a left turn on Avenue 43, but then continued bicycling down Figueroa against the flow of traffic toward her destination—Tony’s Market, which boasts the “coldest beer in town.”

As fate would have it, she ran right into the police officer.

It was her first ticket on a bike, the woman said, adding that she had a clean traffic record until she got the ticket.