BY CHRIS YOUNG

At roughly 8 p.m. on Sept. 2, James Takos pedaled his bike through the streets of Oakland, shouting, “Drunk people shouldn’t ride bicycles!” And as if to prove the point, the 59-year-old struck a curb while riding against traffic down South Bouquet Street, flipping over his handlebars, and slamming his head into a stop sign. For nearly a minute, he lay unconscious in the street, bleeding profusely from the back of his head.

And when he came to, his headaches really began.

Takos’ accident landed him in the middle of an unusual dispute between two Pittsburgh police officers: one convinced that Takos needed only medical attention, the other determined to file charges against him. Eight months later, those differences would result in an unusual court hearing, in which the two officers ended up testifying against each other.

“Usually officers will support their brother or sister officers no matter what happens,” says John Burkoff, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “But this is a really unusual story.”

On April 19, Takos stood before District Judge James Hanley Jr. facing three charges stemming from his accident. Among them: two charges of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Riding a bike drunk is, in fact, against the law in Pennsylvania. Under state law, “[e]very person riding a pedalcycle upon a roadway … shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle.”

Still, a charge of cycling while drunk “happens very, very infrequently,” says Duquesne University law professor Bruce Antkowiak.

“It’s really rare,” agrees Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike Pittsburgh, a bicycling advocacy and education group.

Read the rest of this article in the Pittsburgh City Paper

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