As seriously as I take the law, I believe there are specific times when police officers should choose to not enforce it to its fullest extent.

One of these times was clearly when Sophie Hoad, a DU junior, was hit by a car while riding her bike on a sidewalk, last week.

She arrived at the hospital with a broken femur, but instead of an apology from the driver of the car, she received a $60 ticket for riding her bike on the sidewalk, a law that I personally wasn’t even aware of.

Our judicial system does have to be swift and fair for it to work, but there are ways to get around kicking the hurt when they’re already down.

People get away with much more terrible things than riding a bike on a sidewalk – officers give warnings for speeding tickets, for example. What do you think is worse, going 70 m.p.h. in a 50 zone, or riding your bike in a restricted area?

What confuses me the most is that the driver of the car that hit Hoad didn’t get any sort of punishment. When you’re driving, it’s your responsibility to watch out for pedestrians, bikers and other cars whether they’re following the rules or not.

Hoad easily could have been a pedestrian walking along the sidewalk. It made no difference that she was on a bike. I would hope that if I was walking along a sidewalk and a car hit me there would be some sort of consequence.

 I do respect the police for simply doing their job.  I’m sure the law is there for a good reason, and it is appropriate and necessary to enforce it by handing out tickets when it is broken, but it seems like this law was already enforced enough on Sophie, who was suffering in the hospital.

Perhaps the police could have warned her not to break that law again? A $60 ticket seems excessive for such a minimal crime, and to stack that on top of her hospital payments and pain from a broken bone? That’s just cruel.

The law should have a little bit of leeway for humanity. It’s important that it is enforced as much as possible, but officers should be allowed to judge when someone deserves the punishment or not.

In such blatantly obvious situations like this, they shouldn’t feel bad about having a little compassion and looking the other way.