rfryer wrote:Giles Pargiter wrote:In fact their is no need for a great long debate about this as the situation is perfectly clear.
A highway is anywere the public can go by right rather than privilege and the highway code applies to highways.
Can you back up this assertion? I had a quick scan of my copy of the highway code, and found it explicit about cases when broadening it's scope away from the "road" (eg to include pavements alongside the road when discussing pedestrians), but couldn't find any mention of off-road facilities.
I've never understood why the highway code doesn't include what "highway" is from the current(!) 1835 law:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Will4/5-6/50/section/5 wrote:“highways” shall be understood to mean all roads, bridges . . . , carriageways, cartways, horseways, bridleways, footways, causeways, churchways, and pavements
which was clarified a bit in 1980:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/part/XIV/crossheading/interpretation wrote:(1)In this Act, except where the context otherwise requires, “highway” means the whole or a part of a highway other than a ferry or waterway.
(2)Where a highway passes over a bridge or through a tunnel, that bridge or tunnel is to be taken for the purposes of this Act to be a part of the highway.
(3)In this Act, “highway maintainable at the public expense” and any other expression defined by reference to a highway is to be construed in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section.
and many other acts more or less adopt that same definition, so "in this Act" isn't as much of a limit as you might think. A later section of that act effectively added cycle track to the 1835 category of "highways":
“cycle track” means a way constituting or comprised in a highway, being a way over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way, that is to say, a right of way on pedal cycles (other than pedal cycles which are motor vehicles within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1988 with or without a right of way on foot;
(and yes, there really does seem to be an unclosed parenthetical, thanks to an amendment).
Similarly, here's the 1988 legislated definition of road (and yes, the definitions of road and highway refer to each other!):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/192 wrote:"road”
(a) in relation to England and Wales, means any highway and any other road to which the public has access, and includes bridges over which a road passes ,
and
(b) in relation to Scotland, means any road within the meaning of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 and any other way to which the public has access, and includes bridges over which a road passes,
and "street" from 1991 which is used in some contexts:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/22/section/48 wrote:In this Part a “street” means the whole or any part of any of the following, irrespective of whether it is a thoroughfare—
(a)any highway, road, lane, footway, alley or passage,
(b)any square or court, and
(c)any land laid out as a way whether it is for the time being formed as a way or not.
Where a street passes over a bridge or through a tunnel, references in this Part to the street include that bridge or tunnel.
Just my opinion and like pwa, I don't mind negotiating a right-hand pass when necessary, but:
Mark1978 wrote:With regard to the keep left thing - notwithstanding the "pedestrians can do what they like" argument. Should peds / runners stick to the left too?
No, they should stick to the right, as in the highway code. I feel the grey area probably starts at skaters, especially if they are travelling at roughly similar speed to cycling.