Wednesday morning at 11 two University police officers stopped Nick Kruskamp, a geography graduate student from Snellville, as he was biking down the hill on Sanford Drive between the Miller Learning Center and journalism building on his way from North Campus to the geography building.

Kruskamp received a written warning — all bikers on Sanford Drive must treat the road as a one-way street.

“I guess they had some complaints about people coming down that,” Kruskamp said. “Basically I thought the crosswalk was the start of the bike lane there, so they had people coming down from Baldwin and Sanford who were going the wrong way down that one-way. I think they were just watching out for bikers to not be on that road.”

Nick Kruskamp is given a warning on Sanford Drive. Police are asking bikers to remember to treat Sanford as a one-way street. Photo by CHARLES-RYAN BARBER

University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson said bicyclists must follow the same rules of the road motorists  follow — and that means they cannot bike against the flow of traffic for any reason.

“That’s a one-way street at that point,” Williamson said. “Bikes have to follow the same rules of the road as cars, so they can’t go against the flow of traffic. If the bicyclist is traveling in a bicycle lane, that bicyclist is designed to go with the flow of traffic, not against the flow of traffic.”

Williamson said the officers were stationed there to stop student bicyclists as a response to several complaints.

“We’ve had three bicycle-pedestrian accidents in the last couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ve had a number of students complain about that. And also we had bus operations complain. We thought it was time to go over there and stop some of the bicycles and educate them on the fact of what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. I’ve been down there myself and seen some bicycles come flying down that hill. And if a bicycle and pedestrian collide, it hurts both parties pretty significantly.”

Kruskamp said the officers told him he was most likely the 30th biker they had stopped that morning.

“So I think they had stopped a lot of people,” he said. “They just wanted me to know don’t cut through this area, don’t go on sidewalks through this area, and don’t take shortcuts through some section of the road there.”

After receiving the police warning, Kruskamp plans to find an alternate bicycle path, but he’d still prefer to be able to bike down Sanford Drive to reach the geography building.

“I told them the confusion was there’s just no good way for bikes to get through that area,” he said. “And that area’s kind of the heart of campus connecting North Campus and South Campus. They said basically that we just have to go around. I guess I’ll just avoid that area from now on.”

Williamson said he hopes this effort to educate student bicyclists will prevent any accidents that could happen in the future.

“I don’t want people to feel that, ‘Oh my gosh, all of a sudden police are cracking down on bicyclists,’” he said. “This is based on complaints and accidents. The majority of complaints are from the people who are down there every day, the students. Do me the favor and just go down there and stand around watch and be open-minded and say, ‘Yeah, I could see where some people might get hurt or get irritated.’”