Cycling UK Forum

Thanks for that.

I'm in T3 Leeds. It really would suit me to go food shopping in North Yorkshire in T2. Although Dominic Cummings slipped through their ANPR net, N Yorks police has been active issuing fixed penalties to visitors from other parts of the country especially during the first lockdown and making a big song and dance on social media.

I'd not want to be right, even to the point of being acquitted, if that meant going through the hassle of first getting a wrongly-issued ticket

I was actually hoping that you,with your legal background, would confirm my reading. I will take it that your comment means that you are thanking me for pointing out the relevant parts of the regulations, have read them, and have the same interpretation as me.

As Bristol City Council's advice shows, being right may not save you from a ticket....


The lockdown we are leaving was a return to the first lockdown, meaning no going out of the house, except with reasonable excuse. The basic tier 3 principal seems to be a return to the second phase of the spring lockdown, no staying away overnight, although it does not say so explicitly, it merely closes everywhere you might stay overnight, except with reasonable excuse. Same with pubs, you do not seem to be forbidden to go to one, on your own, but none are allowed to open.

wjhall wrote:I was actually hoping that you,with your legal background, would confirm my reading. I will take it that your comment means that you are thanking me for pointing out the relevant parts of the regulations, have read them, and have the same interpretation as me.

As Bristol City Council's advice shows, being right may not save you from a ticket....


The lockdown we are leaving was a return to the first lockdown, meaning no going out of the house, except with reasonable excuse. The basic tier 3 principal seems to be a return to the second phase of the spring lockdown, no staying away overnight, although it does not say so explicitly, it merely closes everywhere you might stay overnight, except with reasonable excuse. Same with pubs, you do not seem to be forbidden to go to one, on your own, but none are allowed to open.

The one thing I know from experience with any certainty is that if you jump into a bit of legislation in isolation thinking "Eureka!" somebody with a bit of wider knowledge will say "Ah, but what about ...." I'm cautious that I might be missing something staring me in the face.

I think we are in agreement, but bear in mind I only had time for a fairly superficial but methodical read of the regs.

Gone is the obligation to stay at home with exceptions, which is replaced by curtailment of various activities and crucially, I cannot see any express curtailment on movement from one tier to another.

How does anpr pick you out on your touring bike?

Perhaps it picks out the longflap / panniers and says someone's been shopping?!!



Cheers James

thirdcrank wrote:[...] I think we are in agreement, but bear in mind I only had time for a fairly superficial but methodical read of the regs.

Gone is the obligation to stay at home with exceptions, which is replaced by curtailment of various activities and crucially, I cannot see any express curtailment on movement from one tier to another.

I've been reading them backwards and forwards and searching for various phrases including "travel" and I think you're correct. The instruction for T3 residents to stay in their own T3 area and not travel to other areas at all seems to be only advice, unsupported by law.

To be charitable to Bristol City Council, their comments are in line with the red gov.uk posters (in that it doesn't matter if North Somerset and South Gloucs are also Tier 3, they are different areas so you should not travel between them except for good reasons), the regulations were published fairly late and maybe they were expecting the regs to support the posters.

mattsccm wrote:Do you seriously expect anyone to know what is likely to happen in 9 weeks time?
Lots will change by then. If things don't work then a 3rd set of restrictions will happen.
It's not even a lock down. God knows why this word is used.

Actually we now have a pretty good idea of how things will pan out over the next 9 weeks by observing how various levels of restriction have worked over the past months and seeing the results of these applied at different places at different times for different durations.

Broadly:
We know that the current lockdown is working so we will see another week or so of reducing infections as it will take several days for people infected today to develop symptoms, to get tested and to process the results.

We know that tier 3 restrictions are effective in reducing the rate of infections (Merseyside and Warrington were some of the earliest areas into tier 3 before the current lockdown so are the only places in England to reduce the tier). So tier 3 areas will ted to see a continued decline in the infection rate.

We know that tier 1 restrictions are not effective. Anywhere placed in tier one will expect to see an exponential growth in infection. (Pretty much everywhere that was in tier 1 before the lockdown is now in tier 2). So the rate in Cornwall will start to grow again.

We know that tier 2 restrictions are just about sufficient to stop the growth of infection, but not to suppress it. (places that are in tier 2 tend to get stuck there for a long time).

We know that the 5 days of Christmas will cause a jump in the infection rate depending on how enthusiastically people celebrate. Probably a doubling of the rate. So - by February most places now in tier 2 will see an increase in infections due to the Christmas effect.

In terms of policy this results in basically two choices, depending on your objective.
A) If the objective is to get back to normal life as soon as possible then you act quickly and hard to supress the infection so there is no community transmission - then get more or less back to normal while keeping vigilant and ready to jump promptly on any renewed outbreaks with a vigorous track and trace system. (this is the approach in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand & Australia) OR
B) Try to do as little as possible in the short term, only acting when the health system is in imminent risk of being overwhelmed. This way you end up in a semi-permanent state of various levels of restrictions.

Liverpool of course had the benefit of government funding and support for widespread testing which is likely to be the real reason they've managed to drop a tier not the actual tier restrictions themselves. Not sure if warrington was involved in that testing as well. I suspect the truth is that no tier alone has resulted in significant reduction in the metrics to allow tier reduction to happen. It's widespread testing that has done that.

Every thing I've read seems to say tier reduction is almost impossible due to the inadequacy of the restrictions. No expert or politician believes they'll drop tiers on 16th December.

Aiui tier 1 is useless possibly even more harmful than nothing. Tier 2 is very unlikely to have enough effect to reduce infection rate and stress on the local NHS. Tier 3 is better but in high infection rate areas I doubt it'll turn things around. Widespread testing is needed in those areas.

Since the government isn't listening to local representatives over tiers and their boundaries. Since they're not handing over previously promised support finances. Since they are loading low infection areas with out of area covid patients possibly because they do not like the optics of opening nightingale hospitals up plus don't want to pay for the staff needed. Since they place a Christian festival as being more important than national health by reducing even the feeble restrictions unrest have in place for a week. I fully expect there to be stringent, national lockdown in January lasting many months.

In case you weren't sure. I rate the government's handling of the pandemic as somewhere south of criminal responsibility.

What has the pm got against slough?!

I don't think they place a christian festival that highly. It's the pubs and backbenchers that matter.

If they rated Christianity they would show more compassion for people.

Jamesh wrote:How does anpr pick you out on your touring bike?

Perhaps it picks out the longflap / panniers and says someone's been shopping?!!



Cheers James

I think the biggest risk of inappropriate enforcement for cyclists might be something of the Telford type. ie Attract attention for something like not using a farcility. That's a guess.

The position for other things seems to be somewhat confused. The Guardian says that 'Indoor group activities and classes are not allowed in tier 3' (1), this appears to be slightly stricter interpretation of the government advice, in two parts "leisure and sports facilities may continue to stay open, but group exercise classes (including fitness and dance) should not go ahead." and "organised indoor sport, physical activity and exercise classes cannot take place indoors". 'Should' is advice not prohibition, with 'can' being closer to a prohibition, but not necessarily, which is why the Highway Code uses 'Must' to refer to law. With these as prohibitions it is not clear what leisure centres can do when they open. The cannot also seems to overlap and contradict the should not.

I cannot find these prohibitions in the actual regulations, so, in principle the permitted exceptions called up in para 6, near p11, (3) and called up in each tier restriction, override the advice. However, that permitted exceptions paragraph, referring to outdoor permitted organised gatherings also states that required precautions must be taken including '(b) any guidance issued by the government which is relevant to the gathering.' That seems to give government guidance the force of law, including the 'should' and 'cannnot' without, it appears, that law needing to pass through parliament. Except of course that 'takes into account' probably means consider rather than obey. Oddly, this guidance is only called up for outdoor gatherings in public open spaces . I suspect either careless or cunning drafting.


The regulations could be described as both prolix and laconic. For example the government guidance mentions both churches and leisure centres, as being allowed to open. I cannot find any references to either churches or leisure centres in the regulations, which seems to follow the general principle of English law that if something is not forbidden, it is permitted, subject here only to the risk assessment requirement, and only to that in the regulations, apart from the apparent consecration of guidance as law for outdoor permitted gatherings, but not indoor.


I would be interested to hear commments from people with experience in law and legislation on the suitability of the general approach and the quality of the drafting. And the meaning, if anyone can divine it.

Fortunately, the bits about taking a bike ride across tier boundaries appear to be clear.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -1-2-and-3

(2) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/local-restr ... high-alert

(3) uksi_20201374_en.pdf

I don't recall N yorks were ticketing based on ANPR, I thought they were just visiting touristy hotspots and telling people to go home.
I doubt ANPR enforcement is even possible, it does not identify car occupants and it's also not actually that accurate.

For some reason the usual links don't seem to work, but there's an item on the BBC News website just now including this

Supt Mike Walker, who is in charge of North Yorkshire Police's Covid-19 response, said: "Those living in tier three areas are advised not to travel out of the area unless it is necessary, such as for work or education.

"I realise there may be some confusion over what is deemed necessary in these circumstances, so I'd like to be clear here; it is neither necessary or acceptable to leave a tier three area and enter a lower tier area for a day trip or to visit a pub or restaurant for a meal."

He warned people living in tier three areas not to "try to side-step" the tighter restrictions by visiting neighbouring tier two places for a day or night out.

The force said it would be "actively patrolling" border areas with an "increased presence", including using its safety camera fleet, equipped with number plate recognition cameras.

I thought that the confusion here was about the effects of advice but there you are. His gang is bigger than mine

Which appears to tell us that the law is now being made at Superintendent level, or at least by whatever grade civil servant wrote the guidance, rather than the regulations as set by parliament, because there is quite definitely no restriction on going from a tier 3 to a tier 2 area in the regulations. All that appears in the regulations is the transfer of the gathering restrictions with the person from tier 3 into tier 2.

The Superintendent's attitude will affect cycling trips, because, having not banned travel for exercise, the regulations unfortunately do not list it or anything else as a reasonable excuse, which the regulations for lockdown just ended did, and which ministers were clear about right from the start. This seems to mean that leaving lockdown has tightened restrictions.

It also takes us right back to March where overenthusiastic chief constables are extending their powers well beyond the law.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... meras.html

Cheers James

It's pity that the media seem even happier to rehash and recirculate this type of thing than to question it.

Back in March, the transport police locked a woman up for something related to fare dogging and stuck in an extra charge under the Covid regs. The local custody officer, CPS, and the legal advisor to the magistrates' all nodded this through to conviction and the injustice only came to light when a vigilant hack on the Times newspaper didn't exactly thunder but pointed out the error to general embarrassment. Around that time and possibly in connection with the same case, a former CPS area prosecutor on the telly remarked that the police seemed to be making it up as they went along.

Fixed penalties are particularly dodgy in this respect because they are issued at the roadside without any formal review. If the recipient stumps up, that's it. If they don't follow the correct steps to contest the ticket then it's recorded and enforcement then is for the non-payment, not the alleged offence. If somebody does contest a ticket, it may eventually be quietly withdrawn or there will be a court date months or even longer away when it may still be withdrawn.
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While I've been typing away, Jamesh has posted. Excellent stuff!

None of the comments on the DM seem to make the point that "ignorance of the law excuseth no man" and that's even more applicable to police superintendents than men on the Clapham Omnibus booking a ticket to York.