Given a girly slap by a motorcyclist on the railway path.

[thirdcrank]

FWIW, I took "girly" to mean something like gentle or weak and feeble. Not exactly clear usage and not very good anyway.

Let's not be side-tracked from the real problem which is delinquent motorcycling by some people with little better to occupy them. This incident is made worse by the motorbike apparently having been stolen.

[Tangled Metal]

Which "crime" is worst? Girly assault? Driving motorcycles where they shouldn't be driven? Or stealing the motorcycle?

I'm interested to know people's opinions on that rather than pure legal ranking. Afterall crime priorities is all about perceptions I reckon. What's yours?

[Cyril Haearn]

Which "crime" is worst? Girly assault? Driving motorcycles where they shouldn't be driven? Or stealing the motorcycle?

I'm interested to know people's opinions on that rather than pure legal ranking. Afterall crime priorities is all about perceptions I reckon. What's yours?

All are worst, they multiply each other, not 5+5+5 but 5x5x5

[firedfromthecircus]

Which "crime" is worst? Girly assault? Driving motorcycles where they shouldn't be driven? Or stealing the motorcycle?

I'm interested to know people's opinions on that rather than pure legal ranking. Afterall crime priorities is all about perceptions I reckon. What's yours?

Is it not pretty obvious?

In order of seriousness.
1. Assault-Crime against a person.
2. Theft- Crime against property.
3. Unauthorised use of cycle lane- Crime against a theory.

[awavey]

Not me just trying to ID what a girly slap is..... having never heard the expression before and how it differs from any other slap....

While one might dispute the severity of the action (and I'm not saying one should), or describe it in terms that make light of it, surely this is an assault — unprovoked, unwarranted, and inexcusable.

Or is striking a stranger socially acceptable in Britain as long as there is no serious injury and the recipient is someone unimportant — say a child … or a woman … or a cyclist? (Which, by extension, would make it pretty much open season on any female under the age of 18 who is riding a bicycle.)

its not acceptable at all, or at least it shouldnt be, but the kind of people who take and ride mopeds like that dont care, because they can basically get away with it as theres unlikely to be any proof beyond you said they said.

Ive had passengers in cars lean out and try and grab my handlebars, was at least convinced someone tried to slap me once when I was moving through slow moving traffic, I felt something but was I think shocked enough was never 100% sure it had actually happened, and again cant be sure as I never saw what they were doing behind me, but I was at some traffic lights in the ASL and was aware of a moped , and when the light went green suddenly found I couldnt move forward, and either their pillion was trying to nick my pannier, or had just grabbed hold of the rack and held onto it for a laugh, and then let go and then blitzed me as they overtook.

so yeah not socially acceptable, but lots of craziness passes for "normal" thesedays

[thirdcrank]

I can't see much point in analysing something like this to rank the elements. It's the incident as a whole that is objectionable from a cycling POV.

Assuming that the motorbike was stolen, rather than reported stolen to evade prosecution, the offender was inevitably uninsured here. Not a big deal for the OP as they were uninjured and could have claimed from the MIB if they had been, but it's another aggravating factor in the entire episode.

[Tangled Metal]

My ranking question was really curiosity about whether members of this forum are seeing the whole incident objectively or purely from a cyclist's pov.

IMHO ranking is acceptable in current climate of prioritising of official activity. If these had been three separate crimes which would you rather police and other officials efforts should he made with limited resources? I wondered whether deprivation of property (moped / motorbike) would rank highly. I expected some to see motorbike riding on cycle or mixed use (pedestrian, cyclists and horse riders) as an issue that should get more resources to reduce than theft of motorised transport.

Whilst antisocial behaviour isn't as serious as assault I'm sure you'll see links between those carrying out antisocial behaviour and those with more serious behaviour such as theft and assault.

Ideally zero tolerance of all crime is the real goal but real world what aspect of the OP's incident should be tackled first? Low hanging fruit perhaps, whatever that is in this case.

[thirdcrank]

It's easy to assume that lawbreakers specialise. There are some baddies who try to be scrupulous about their vehicles eg drug dealers using frequently-changed hire cars to avoid driving something with police "suspect" markers, but plenty ignore traffic law, knowing that if they are arrested for something seen as serious, the traffic stuff will be dropped. Part of this is because robbery, burglary and the like tend to be tried in the Crown Court, while most traffic stuff is summary trial only. Another contributor is the organisation of the police into specialisms - at the broad level Traffic, CID etc. A lot of detectives see traffic as unimportant, especially if the offenders are "otherwise law-abiding drivers" who traditionally support the police.

A case like this illustrates some of what I'm saying. Nick a motorbike, ride it about, go on a cycle track for a bit of a burn-up where there's unlikely to be any police, try to upset a cyclist or two and so on. The word also seems to be getting round that if you are misbehaving on two wheels the police may be in trouble if they take action. Inevitably more of it going on, with more police taking the line "Sorry, nothing we can do about it." That's before the cuts in manpower and the switch of resources from uniform patrol to investigation.

On the matter of seriousness, nothing that's happened here was high on a scale of 1-10 but that doesn't mean it's ok.

[Cyril Haearn]

The Guardian has an article about "moped crime", could be relevant

[RodT]

I was riding back to Bath yesterday along the Bristol-Bath railway path when two hooded, scarfed-up characters on a motor-scooter appeared, travelling towards me. The one on the back of the scooter launched a kick at me as they went by. This was just before Warmley. The ladies in the tea-shop told me this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. I called 101 and reported the incident. I received a full and considerate hearing and was told the incident would be logged and officers would ‘observe’ the area. Not sure what that means.
The kick didn’t connect and I wasn’t hurt. I was alarmed, though, and surprised at the brazen nature of the stunt. Two kids felt confident enough to ride a scooter in broad daylight for some distance along a designated cycle path. It wasn’t exactly subtle, either. You could hear and see the scooter coming from way off; it had no silencer, and its headlight was on full beam.
Part of me is angry and outraged. Part of me feels those two could have more fun riding bikes along the cycle path.

[mark1964]

I have been commuting along the B2B path for ten years now and have had a few encounters with 'motorbike yoof'. the last one was back in April this year, idiot came racing towards me on full size scrambler bike, swerving around other cyclists & pedestrians. I've often seen 'pit bike' on the path and once came across these morons:

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VbBp6gD-8g [/youtube]

If you have an encounter, try to record any distinctive markings for the cops. These idiots don't have reg plates and they often wear full face helmets with mirrored goggles. I always report things like this to the police. Where did this happen? - your video seems not to work. Needless to say, mopeds/motorbikes are banned from the path.

[londoncommuter0000]

A slap has a high chance of causing an off, so that should go straight to the police.

Yes, so they can ignore it.