Ride as if you own the road...

[RodT]

I discovered these words of wisdom from Patrick Field in an e-book publication called The Bicycle Reader:

'Ride as if you own the road and are ready to share it generously with others. It can be tiresome to be treated as a problem when you're the solution to a problem, but don't let other people's stupidity upset you. Never take it personally. Those afflicted by motor-dependence may drag us down to their own unenviable position, but the primary victims of their misfortune are themselves.
Traffic is only other people. Almost all of them are nice people like us, but even the gangsters, the ones whose parents didn't love them enough, don't want- for their own selfish reasons- to run you down. Give them a chance not to run you down, and they won't.
On a bicycle you can take your place on busy roads among fast-moving motor traffic. Sharing space with people who are literally 50 times more powerful than you is free assertion training.'

[Erudin]

Thanks, had not heard of him, he has a way with words, listening to him on YouTube while I peel the spuds.

YouTube - Patrick Field - Cycling is a (very fun) political process - IQ2 Cycling festival

[Phil Fouracre]

Interesting - not heard this before, nice to find that I've been 'doing it right' for years! Very difficult to get others to follow suit though

[brooksby]

I discovered these words of wisdom from Patrick Field in an e-book publication called The Bicycle Reader:

'Ride as if you own the road and are ready to share it generously with others. It can be tiresome to be treated as a problem when you're the solution to a problem, but don't let other people's stupidity upset you. Never take it personally. Those afflicted by motor-dependence may drag us down to their own unenviable position, but the primary victims of their misfortune are themselves.
Traffic is only other people. Almost all of them are nice people like us, but even the gangsters, the ones whose parents didn't love them enough, don't want- for their own selfish reasons- to run you down. Give them a chance not to run you down, and they won't.
On a bicycle you can take your place on busy roads among fast-moving motor traffic. Sharing space with people who are literally 50 times more powerful than you is free assertion training.'

+1

[bertgrower]

Thanks, had not heard of him, he has a way with words, listening to him on YouTube while I peel the spuds.

YouTube - Patrick Field - Cycling is a (very fun) political process - IQ2 Cycling festival

I have been trained by PF to train beginners to rides a bike. He a good guy well worth taking notice of.

[blackbike]

I do own the road.

They are public property and I am a member of the public.

[thirdcrank]

I do own the road.

They are public property and I am a member of the public.

An interesting but not entirely accurate description of the legal position. Some roads are in public ownership and I think that motorways are the most common example , although I'm sure none of us would want to ride on them just to exercise our proprietorial rights. A lot of roads - more correctly highways in this context -and I suspect the majority are owned by the owner of the land over which the highway passes but are maintained at the public expense. (Edit: Or more often than not these days, badly neglected at the public expense. )

I know this for a couple of reasons. First, long ago, I attended a probationer constables' course in Leeds and we had some lessons from would-be members of the Training Department who were practicing on us. Trainee trainers. The lesson on poaching was given by a detective sergeant with no interest in the subject who began the lesson "I am to teach you about poaching. There is no poaching in Leeds." He then spent the rest of the lesson telling us about his experiences in the Crime Squad. An easy to remember lesson, like Dr Johnson on snakes in Iceland but at the end of the week, the marks in the exam were poor. I read it up later and one of the things about poaching was that your rights of way on a highway do not include poaching on it so you are a trespasser (in pursuit of game.)

The other, and a bit more recent, is that in the days when the police bothered about vehicle tax discs, quite a lot of people thought that they were OK parking an untaxed car on the road outside their own house. I've even had a couple of memorable discussions dealing with complaints from the owners of small terrace houses whose deeds showed that they owned the street outside as far as the middle. It's blue-in-the-face territory to try to explain to somebody that various laws encroach on their rights as owners.

[MikeF]

I do own the road.

They are public property and I am a member of the public.

An interesting but not entirely accurate description of the legal position. Some roads are in public ownership and I think that motorways are the most common example , although I'm sure none of us would want to ride on them just to exercise our proprietorial rights. A lot of roads - more correctly highways in this context -and I suspect the majority are owned by the owner of the land over which the highway passes but are maintained at the public expense. (Edit: Or more often than not these days, badly neglected at the public expense. )

Indeed so. Roads are normally "adopted" not owned. They are very similar to Public Footpaths/ Bridleways etc. They are public rights of way/public highways. Nearly all public rights of way cross private land. The surface is vested with a public authority but they are just public rights of way with a right for the public to pass and repass across the private land. Similarly with most roads; they are public highways with right for the public to travel along them maintained at public expense.

I suspect that developers technically "own" many estate roads and some PROWs as well. However County Councils, for example, may well own small sections of the road network eg where an old railway line has been bought and is now used as a road.

Also any roads owned by a local authority are not "public property", but property owned by a public body, which is not the same. Consider council schools as an example; you do not necessarily have any right to enter council schools just because a local authority owns them. But you do have a right, by definition, to use a public highway, but as a member of the public you do not own it.

[thirdcrank]

... you do not necessarily have any right to enter council schools just because a local authority owns them. ...

A very good example and at the risk of heading off from discussing an assertive riding style, I'll indulge myself with a trip down memory lane. As a young PC I was dispatched to an incident on school property where an alumnus (We didn't really have alumni in Leeds, he was a recent school leaver and had gone back to complain forcefully about something like his O-level results) had been getting stroppy. I was met on school property by the head teacher and a several deputies. (Deputy heads, that is, not deputy sheriffs ) Laddy was there, silent but defiant. Even school head teachers were not always aware that the police have no authority to remove trespassers in the absence of enabling legislation. When I told miladdo to leave, he gave me a smart Eric Morecambe-style two-handed smack. I reflected on that well-known phrase or saying "Sorry mate, nothing the police can do about it" which was pretty much the case. I doubt if my assailant was completely sure of the niceties of the legal station, because he rather sharply left the school. Mission accomplished. I followed him off the school premises into the street to ensure he didn't return, and where he would have been on weaker ground had he decided to come back for round 2. I suspect that over the years there were plenty of other incidents, not necessarily with a would-be comedian, where the police declined to act. The result has been legislation creating specific offences involving trespassing at schools.

In those days, the most commonly-used power to remove trespassers from private property was at the request of the landlord of licensed premises, although in one city not a million miles from Leeds, in requesting police assistance, a landlord risked their licence for being unable to run a pub properly. Liquor licensing has changed completely since I retired.