Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

[gaz]

This isn't any "driver" but any "person". Those words are still statute.

+1, you beat me to it, here's a previous thread.

There's nothing so simple in life as riding a bike.

[Adam S]

...a bizarre quirk in the law at that time...

This may have been Highway Act 1835 s78:

... or if any person ... shall not keep his waggon, cart, or other carriage, or horses, mules, or other beasts of burthen, on the left or near side of the road, for the purpose of allowing such passage ...

This isn't any "driver" but any "person". Those words are still statute.

I'll blame Chris Peck That article seemed to imply a change in statute had since occurred

[snibgo]

Quite possibly, legislation since 1835 has changed the position. Volumes of road law have been passed since then.

[drossall]

Lots of people (including me) need to get their cycle across a footway in order to gain access to their residence.

That's not relevant. Even cars may be driven across footways onto drives and parking spaces.

[drossall]

I don't believe that the law has changed fundamentally in years, but its interpretation has. I agree with those who say that, forty years ago, it was taken for granted that a bike was a vehicle, so if you wheeled one, it stayed in the gutter and you walked on the adjacent pavement. You couldn't then push it through a red light, because you'd be crossing the white line.

John Franklin is the best source on pushing bikes on pavements (and other matters). It appears that case law has now established that someone pushing a bike is a foot passenger, so it's fine to wheel one on the pavement. If you aren't in the roadway, you aren't subject to its regulations.

Strictly, it would appear, you could get off at a red light, walk around the corner, and get back on. Well cyclists could do with the odd privilege. Doesn't work so well if not turning left, of course...

[Brucey]

It appears that case law has now established that someone pushing a bike is a foot passenger, so it's fine to wheel one on the pavement. If you aren't in the roadway, you aren't subject to its regulations.

Strictly, it would appear, you could get off at a red light, walk around the corner, and get back on. Well cyclists could do with the odd privilege. Doesn't work so well if not turning left, of course...

I guess I must have assumed that to be the case, since I do precisely what you describe quite often.

cheers

[661-Pete]

Lots of people (including me) need to get their cycle across a footway in order to gain access to their residence.

That's not relevant. Even cars may be driven across footways onto drives and parking spaces.

Maybe, but I was answering another post and you've quoted a small part of my post out of context. Here is the rest, fyi:

The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.

That would be absurd, surely!

Lots of people (including me) need to get their cycle across a footway in order to gain access to their residence. All right, it is usually only necessary to push one's bike across the footway rather than along it - but if there is an obstruction e.g. a parked vehicle, I have to push the bike along the footway a short distance.

Furthermore, am I breaking the law every time I drive my car across the footway to get in or out of my driveway?

[gaz]

... It appears that case law has now established that someone pushing a bike is a foot passenger, so it's fine to wheel one on the pavement. If you aren't in the roadway, you aren't subject to its regulations...

Crank v Brook appears to be the case in question and it is wild fancy to extrapolate that in all cases of someone pushing a bike that person is a foot passenger.

Case law is exactly that, the law as determined to be applicable to all the facts present in one particular case. Similar cases may come to court and similar circumstances will be considered but you can bet your 40 shilling fine that someone on the other side will be arguing that the cases are dis-similar.

Let us not forget that the underlying incident of Crank v Brook happened in the carriageway and was a legal argument over regulations applying to precedence on the carriageway. That's a very, very big dis-similar for our learned friends to get their teeth into.

The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.

That would be absurd, surely!

What evidence do you have that the law is never absurd? And stop calling me Shirley.

[thirdcrank]

The "for instance" that started this thread is no more than that - hypothetical. Had it been raised in those far off pre-internet forum days of the mid-1990's when I was still involved in enforcement, I'd not have paid attention. Had somebody collared me with "Hey Mick, you're a cyclist. As a copper, what do you think about somebody wheeling their bike ...." I should have said it's pointless thinking about it (perhaps with the proviso that nothing would be done unless there were to be a serious accident.) As a fairly active police officer, my involvement with law-breaking cyclists was about the same as with poachers or glanders and farcy.

Times change. The fixed penalty system - tickets - was extended to cover pavement cycling and while the urban myth that "they can't touch you for it" spread thanks to the internet, the newly appointed PCSO's were given this as one of their few powers. All this at a time when the biggest obstacle to pavement cycling was caused by parked motor vehicles.

Ironically, during this period, we saw the introduction of officially approved pavement cycling in the form of shoddy, often poorly thought out shared-use facilities and the like. No problem for "cyclists" of course because their use is optional. The CTC gained a brilliant victory having that point included in the Highway Code (the only undefused time-bomb being the advice that they can make riding safer, even though all the evidence seems to show the contrary to be the case.)

Meanwhile, we saw the insidious spread of spin, in the form of the police crackdown: half a dozen heavies in riot gear wielding a battering ram against a drug dealer's front door for the benefit of the accompanying TV crew. Or, at the other end of the scale, a session of issuing tickets for pavement cycling. It's riddled with loopholes, of course, so anybody with half a brain who gets one can show them up for the dolts that they surely are, so long as the case is being argued from the safety of a computer keyboard, rather than with the alternative of stumping up or or clarifying the correct form of address for a magistrate ( "Your Worship" )

Along come the Police and Crime Commissioners who will inject some common sense into police priorities. Only strategic powers, of course, because nobody can tell the police who to prosecute, but they will be hiring and firing chief constables so they will have huge influence. It's only in the last couple of weeks that we had a thread about the PCC in Cambridge giving the message about delinquent cyclists and the chief constable was in total agreement (Is it possible to limbo through a hoop?)

Discretion - in the form of people exercising their judgment / using their experience and training - is expensive. Most of British industry has been transformed by getting rid of the old greys. We are left with the executives making a killing before everything goes belly up, and a poorly-paid workforce in call centres. Payment by results, in the form of commission etc has led to all manner of scandals. of which payment protection insurance is only one. Policing is about to go the same way.

In some areas, parking enforcement has already been privatised, and I don't think anybody is paid on the basis of customer satisfaction surveys: it's all about tickets issued - quantity rather than quality.

Luckily, we have somebody on the case:

http://www.cyclistsdefencefund.org.uk/riding-pavement

[Ayesha]

As soon as you pick the bike up off the ground by its toptube, it becomes a 'handbag with wheels'.

[ianr1950]

Is there really a point to this debate.

[661-Pete]

Is there really a point to this debate.

Seconded. The best point made thus far, I think, is this one:

And stop calling me Shirley.

[[XAP]Bob]

Is there really a point to this debate.

Is there ever a point here?

It is useful to know if pushing your bike past a red light is still an offence, as you might want to do it in the rain at a quiet junction.

The difference between this and the C&B ruling is that in this case you wouldn't be (and I quote from memory) "starting on the pavement on one side of the road and continuing to the pavement on the other side of the road"

Unless you dismount, climb onto the pavement, cross the road, climb down and remount.

[ianr1950]

To me if I am on the pavement pushing my bike then why should I feel the need to stop. I am a pedestrian, what red lights are on pavements, I don't know of any where I live but maybe there are some, but does that mean that people who not not pushing anything have to stop as well?

[Ayesha]

"74
On the right. If you are turning right, check the traffic to ensure it is safe, then signal and move to the centre of the road. Wait until there is a safe gap in the oncoming traffic and give a final look before completing the turn. It may be safer to wait on the left until there is a safe gap or to dismount and push your cycle across the road."


What this says to me is...

If traffic is bad, you can get off and push.
I would have no problem extending this to "When the lights are on red, you can get off and push the bike across the road."