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In what they say is a new safety campaign, the police are issuing summonses that may lead to arrest for cyclists who break the city’s traffic laws.
May 24, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
On Wednesday morning, Ivan Boston’s day began at the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Downtown Brooklyn. Last month, police officers had stopped him for running a red light on his electric bicycle, and Mr. Boston, a construction worker, assumed that the D.M.V. was where traffic tickets were paid.
But the pink slip of paper in his hand was no traffic ticket. It was a criminal summons. In bold, black letters it read, “To avoid a warrant for your arrest, you must go to court.”
When Mr. Boston noticed, a task he had considered a minor annoyance instead turned into a half-day ordeal. He hurried to court at the David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, across from City Hall.
“This is ridiculous,” said Mr. Boston, 56, whose unplanned day off cost him $200. “But I don’t want to get a warrant.”
Lawyers who spend much of their careers fighting summonses in criminal court find the situation just as baffling.
“These are just not charges that lawyers and judges inside the summons part of the court are used to seeing,” said Gideon Oliver, a lawyer who regularly practices in summons court.
