From my personal experience, here is what you must learn to recognize.
Enforcement is all about a tax grab and the law enforcement growth industry, as some folks have described it.
The enforcement fellow on the street enjoys his ez life and doesn't want to have to work for a living. The fellow who gave you the decision is nothing more than an administrative clerk who also enjoys a cushy job, and well paid, at that.
Everyone in the system is there to enforce compliance so they can maintain their own niche. The clerk has forced you into the expense of an appeal to the next higher court.
They will do the same thing. Protect their members in the lower ranks.
After much expense, if you can afford it, you may eventually reach some higher court which will remand the matter to a lower court on technical issues, without a decision ever being reached. The local prosecuting attorney will simply not pick up the case again. You'll hang in limbo.
Yet a fine will have been adjudicated, and you must pay it or be in contempt of the court. THAT, is punishable by incarceration.
Under well established precedent of law, a tax must be paid before you can file a case for recovery of damages... (paying that tax)
It makes no sense, and may be done differently in your part of the system, because there is no legitimacy in any claim to infringe upon your freedom to travel on personal business.
Possibly the best way to deal with the situation is to get some local legislator to champion your cause and draw up some statute that will recognize low powered conveyances operated at bicycle speeds to be below a level subject to inspection, regulation, and taxation.
The one fellow in FL was apparently successful in making some headway, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will trickle down to the curbside at any time in the future.
Control and regulation are insidious and pervasive.
Good luck to you
rc
