She Has World at Her Not-So-Fleet Feet

First, 82-year-old Mayvis Coyle got fined. Then she got famous.

She got a $114 jaywalking ticket and now people the world over know her story about why she thinks the motorcycle cop did her wrong.

Editorial writers from Sacramento to Scotland have rushed to Coyle's defense. Strangers in distant lands are rising to support her. Camera crews show up at her Sunland trailer unannounced, wanting Coyle to repeat the story once again.

And she doesn't even have a phone.

As Coyle tells it, she was doing her best to shuffle across Foothill Boulevard, with her cane in one hand, groceries in the other, when the light changed from "Walk" to "Don't Walk".

Enter an LAPD motorcycle officer, who gave her the ticket, which she is challenging in court.

Her case has become more than just a traffic dispute; to her supporters, it's about the rights of senior citizens and pedestrians everywhere.

"STICK YOUR FINE," Scotland's Glasgow Daily Record said.

The San Fernando Police Department got so many calls and e-mails from people angry about the ticket, it sent out a news release saying the Los Angeles Police Department, not the San Fernando cops, gave Coyle the citation.

Sitting outside her trailer Thursday, Coyle said she was stunned by the turn of events.

"This is the first ticket I ever got in my life ... for trying to cross the street," Coyle said. "I always try to obey the laws of the land."

Coyle lives alone in Sunland's Monte Vista Mobile Estates during the winter and in her hometown of Sedalia, Colo., in the Rocky Mountains during the summer. A retired hairdresser and onetime rancher, she's facing the media in her trademark orange straw hat and Indian beads around her neck.

Because her trailer lacks a phone, the park's office manager has been taking scores of messages on her behalf over the last week and showing TV news crews to Coyle's place.

An 80-year-old woman from Canada sent her a letter of support with a $20 bill. A representative from Ellen DeGeneres' talk show called Thursday, trying to book the great-great-grandmother on her TV show.

"I didn't want all this publicity," said Coyle. "But I'm not objecting to being used if it gets the lights changed and gets respect for the elderly.... I think people can see I'm being sincere," she continued. "I'm speaking for all those seniors who can't get across the street."

It was Feb. 15 when Coyle was crossing Foothill Boulevard and Woodward Avenue after a trip to the grocery store.