discwiz

Yesterday on the drive home, I took the back way to hit the bank and avoid traffic. I pulled up to Wiehle (from Sunset Hills) and noticed a cop was coming down Wiehle from the firehouse. I was waiting for the cop to cross through the intersection, but he never did and traffic started moving again.  I turned right onto Wiehle and saw another cop car zip down the W&OD trail. Keep in mind, it was about 6:30pm, beautiful outside and the trail was packed with joggers, bikers, walkers, etc.

I rubber-necked slowly went down the street and saw that the cops were about a 1/4 mile down the trail with all their lights on. I guess they were catching a bad guy!

So, this morning during my jog I saw a cop parked by Old Reston Ave. His car was parked on the grass by the park benches and he was leaning on the car with his arms crossed. 

"Excellent!" I thought, he's here to patrol and make certain there aren't anymore bad guys! As I approached the road, another jogger caught up to me, so I pushed the crosswalk button, we looked both ways and crossed the street. There were no cars and we were in the crosswalk.

The cop said, "If you guys blow through that light again, I'm going to give you a ticket!"

I looked around confused, trying to figure out what he said at first because I was listening to headphones. The guy beside me looked a bit confused too, and gave me a look like "wtf?!" Then we figured out what he had said, but pretty much ignored it and kept running.

On the way back, the cop was still there. When I approached the crosswalk, he shouted "You better wait for the crosswalk signal this time!"  I had two choices, run through the light and see if he can catch me or push the button and wait.  I would have run through, but my fear is that he would be waiting for me tomorrow morning.  Sooo, I pushed the button, looked both ways... no traffic. Waited for the light to turn yellow.. still no traffic. Waited for the light to turn red.. still no traffic.  Waited for the crosswalk symbol to turn to a walk and then ran across the street and home again.

So far, this is the second time I've been hassled on the W&OD by cops. I say hassled because at both times I was minding my own business and not breaking the law.  I'm thinking they should be trying to protect me instead of give me a hard time. Perhaps I'm easier to harass because they know that I won't fight back. I had an early meeting this morning and didn't want to get held up by getting a ticket for crossing the street.

The problem is that I don't even know the law... If the hand on the crosswalk sign is lit, am I legally required to stop? I do not have a red/green light situation, just the crosswalk sign. I thought the crosswalk sign is something to help me when there is a lot of traffic, not something to hold me up when there are no cars in sight.  Any thoughts?