Coming the old soldier?

[thirdcrank]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -path.html

Perhaps this should be in "On the footway" rather than "On the road."

[reohn2]

Strickly,well,err yes,spirit of? he's 84!!

[TwoPlusTen]

The response does seem somewhat disproportionate - but if he's guilty of it, then he's guilty of it.

If they did have a photograph of him doing it - why could they not show it to him?

[lanternerouge]

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[Tonyf33]

He plays on his age and laudable military service to foster sympathy, but both are irrelevant .. the officer saw him ride in a no-ride zone. 3 meters or 300, the law is clear. He tried to bluster his way out of it, instead of apologizing and paying his fine, and now pride has taken over and an unnecessary battle has begun.

Talk about jobsworth!
The newspaper foster the sympathy, how do you know that he is playing his age & military service these are facts that are extruded by the paper, it is the paper who writes the article after all to get the attention of its readership.

I thought the home secretary said earlier this year that it was accpetable for vunerable cyclists to take to the pavement/footway (what ever you want to call it) especially if they are taking much greater care around pedestrians.
Even the police in Bath have said a couple of weeks ago that a quiet word would suffice for those that were just trundling about.
Heavy handed OTT tactics, really really gets on my wick this style of policing and does them lots of harm publicly IMO.

[lanternerouge]

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[GrahamNR17]

I think he should have just apologised from the start, with a nice big smile. He wouldn't have got a fine. But doubtless he behaved like a holier-than-thou pensioner with sole rights do do whatever the hell he wants to, and the Plastic Policemen were heavy-handed and abusive according to a witness (bank manager). The rozzers should back-off, and so should the old man. The whole thing has got out of hand, and is now little more than dick-waving. Neither side wants to back down and admit they were in the wrong - the old man for riding three yards on a footway and being a cantankerous old git, or the police for behaving like nightclub bouncers.

Alas, I've lived in a popular retirement area long enough to realise the "sweet little old war heroes" are usually self-righteous old pricks (not exclusively, obviously).

I don't trust this story one little bit.

[gbnz]

It's a pity the cyclist wasn't black, gay and a teenager.

The Telegraph would have been able to run the story on it's front page as evidence of declining values in society, with Simon Heffer obtaining a full articles worth of "lost values and a loss of respect", for the weekend edition. Of course, if the black, gay teenager had been 18 in 1944, he to would have been conscripted, given several medals for service in policing displaced persons in defeated nations and the Telegraph would have to rejig it's editorial values

[gbnz]

It's a pity the cyclist wasn't black, gay and a teenager.

The Telegraph would have been able to run the story on it's front page as evidence of declining values in society, with Simon Heffer obtaining a full articles worth of "lost values and a loss of respect", for the weekend edition. Of course, if the black, gay teenager had been 18 in 1944, he to would have been conscripted, given several medals for service in policing displaced persons in defeated nations and the Telegraph would have to rejig it's editorial values

Not that it's got anything to with cycling . Merely that I'm off on the bike shortly, to pick up the weekend Telegraph (And obviously if there's a decent story, the Guardian to, to ensure I benefit from the full picture of right and left skewed journalism

[Mick F]

I don't trust this story one little bit.

Neither do I.

I think no matter what was said or reported, he should go to court.
The truth will come out, even though the press may not report it truthfully.

[eileithyia]

Well as I read the article my reaction was; Just cos he's an elderly war veteran does he have any more rights to ride on a pavement than the rest of society, particularly some teenage hoodie.
Interesting to read other people's response are similar.
Yes it was perhaps heavy-handed of the police, but looks like it got a bit out of hand with no side prepared to back down.
Am sure elderly war-veterans would quickly be up in arms if teenage hoodies were riding around pedestrian areas!

[reohn2]

Theres a shed load of difference in an 84 year old trundling slowly (looking at the photo he's no Franchesco Moser) through a pedestrian precinct and the younger element zooming around the same vulnerable pensioners.
Yes he was breaking the law but wouldn't it have been much better for the PSCO's to have had a word with a warning that if he persists he would be slapped with a fixed penalty,its all about application and by all accounts in this case the PSCO's got the application wrong.

As for the newspaper,well they're doing what they do best stirring it up.

[thirdcrank]

It was the style of the newspaper report that interested me and gbnz expressed my thoughts very well. There's always the possibility that a bit of well-publicised 'martyrdom' will provoke a recurrence and another gripping story for the hacks.

I seems to me that there are several important issues for cyclists which we tend to ignore.

Whenever there is any sort of opinion survey about crime and offending, the response shows that the although the public consider, murder, robbery. burglary to be serious, the type of thing they feel affects them locally and needs stopping is much more mundane such as dog muck on pavements and cycling ditto. (The ch. supt. quoted in the report mentions the level of complaints received about this.)

AFAIK, this incident occurred in a pedestrianised area where the official guidance (and I'm too idle to dig out the relevant TAL) is that cyclists and pedestrians can generally co-exist safely. That advice is increasingly ignored by local traffic authorities when making the TRO and that's at the heart of the problem.

When the populist Blunkett introduced fixed penalty tickets for this, it was in response to those public attitudes. (See current thread about are we hated?) He wanted to simplify the enforcement of the Highways Act 1835, which is now pretty much confined to prohibiting footway cycling. If he had wanted to restrict enforcement to 'anti-social' cycling on the footway he could have introduced tickets for careless / inconsiderate cycling (which was already an offence on both the carriageway and footway) but he didn't. He may have added a few platitudes to placate the CTC, but IMO his target was footway cycling, pure and simple.

All sorts of factors have diverted the police from dealing with minor things like this and the simple fact is that it's now too expensive to use expensively trained police officers to do it. A few years ago there was a suggestion from the top end of the police service that people should be recruited to deal with minor anti-social offending. The term "street wardens" was suggested, partly to answer objections from the other end of the service about "two tier policing." Up popped Blunkett again, this time with police community support officers. Dressed in a police-style uniform, they were intended to fool the public into thinking they were an effective part of the police and "community" was added with all its comfy connotations. The economies come from minimal training so they can only deal with things like footway cycling. One of their few specific powers is to be able to require an alleged offender to wait briefly while the real police come to sort things out - which is apparently exactly what happened here.

Dealing with older people who offend can be difficult and it would be unusual for somebody aged 84 to be prosecuted. I've administered plenty of formal cautions to pensioners - usually for shoplifting - and I almost invariably have said something like "You are old enough to be my father / mother, so I'm not going to spend time trying to teach you what's right and wrong."

It seems to me that the veteran thing or coming the old soldier depending on POV is irrelevant except that to note that any WWII veteran will now be elderly. I'm a regular reader of the obituaries of veterans and I don't doubt we owe that generation a debt of gratitude, but that's all. I have various medals which belonged to deceased members of my family - nothing for gallantry, let me say. Among them is my grandmother's Defence Medal - she was a volunteer stretcher bearer at the first aid post (Armley Baths) I also have the Special Constabulary Medal awarded to the married man she was "seeing" at their police station (also Armey Baths) - he had a reserved occupation and my family was scandalised when his wife eventually died in 1955 and he 'made an honest woman' of my grandmother. I also have an Iron Cross he acquired and to round off this rambling tale, the ribbons for the Special Constabulary Medal and the Iron Cross are identical.

[snibgo]

I hope this will get people thinking about how and where they ride.

I've ranted on another thread that 50% of pavement cyclists, IME, don't give way to pedestrians. This annoys me intensly, especially as I reckon they are in more danger from traffic than if they rode on the road. Some time soon I will accidentally put my crutch in someone's wheel and take great delight in watching them go flying.

People older and crumblier than me must feel more intimidated. If all cyclists gave way to pedestrians, I doubt anyone would care about pavement cycling.

I might add that IME the pavement cyclists are all under 40 or so. The older cyclists use the roads.

[Mick F]

I might add that IME the pavement cyclists are all under 40 or so. The older cyclists use the roads.

It's not just in your experience!

Why is this?
Why do The Younger Generation ride on pavements?

Perhaps it's because The Younger Generation always do stuff The Older Generation would never do?

'twas ever thus?
What were we doing that upset our parents?