My friend Jacob Redding has started a new site called "Critical Mass Tickets".
It’s such a great example of a site that collects information so we can tell a clear story.
So quick history:
Critical Mass is a monthly event in cities around the world.
The idea is simple: everyone get together and ride bikes in a big group to show that bike riding and community are cool things to celebrate. "Critical Mass is sometimes called an ‘organized coincidence’, with no leader, no organizers, and no membership."
The term "critical mass" was adopted from an observation made by American human powered vehicle and pedicab designer George Bliss while visiting China.
He noted that in traffic in China, both motorists and bicyclists had an
understood method of negotiating unsignalled intersections. Traffic
would "bunch up" at these intersections until the back log reached a
"critical mass" at which point that mass would move through the
intersection.
In New York City, a problem developed. During the Republic National Convention, over 5,000 bikers got together during the monthly Critical Mass ride. Since the city was so politically charged, the NYC police saw the bikers as a threat and began mass arrests. Read how it all went down here.
Since 2004, NYC police have routinely harassed Critical Mass riders each month. Usually, they hands out tickets and arrest people. Most of these tickets and arrests are then thrown out of court, but the effect is obvious. As Jacob’s site says:
Although the NYPD’s tactics are repeatedly found unconstitutional,
unlawful, or just plain wrong, officers continue to issue numerous
tickets at every ride. The current tactics have been described as
"systematic" harassment; it is not the ticket itself but the
aggravation of the ticketing and the need to fight the ticket that is
the harassment.
Anyway…CMtickets lets people plot where they got their ticket and when.
They can then let people know how the court ruled on the ticket.
They can get help with handling tickets and police harrassment.
They can post video of each event.
And over time, everyone can see how the NYPD is handling Critical Mass which they obviously see as a threat.
This is web 2.0.
UPDATE: Just last week, a Federal judge said the NYPD could no longer videotape people on the street without good reason. The police routinely videotaped at Critical Mass events as another harassment tactic.
