Cycling UK Forum

Trouble with pushing a bike, you're pushing a vehicle.

We are very happy that a bicycle is defined as a vehicle, so we can ride it on the road. However, we can't have it both ways. If a bike is a vehicle, it remains a vehicle even it if isn't being ridden. A car is still a car when it's parked. A bike is still a bike when it's in the shed.

If a sign says "No Vehicles", you can't get out of your car and push it to get round the law. Ditto a bicycle.

IIRC, we had much discussion on here whether it was legal to push a bike on a pavement, and how it used to be the norm to push it along on the road next to the kerb in the gutter.

Motor-vehicle offences often involve "driving". Is pushing a car "driving" it? Dunno.

Most cycling offences involve "riding", and that would exclude wheeling it. But not Highways Act 1835 s72. This involves "leading or driving". So, is wheeling a bike "leading or driving" it?

First, let me say that the way you pose the questions illustrates a general point I've tried to make before, which is that a case decided in respect of one bit of the law, may have no relevance for another, even though in laymen's minds, it's exactly the same.

The majority of cases I'm aware of about driving motor vehicles concern somebody who was not driving 100% as in sitting in the driver's seat but had hold of a motor vehicle, possibly trying to bump start it or shove it somewhere. The defendant has been charged with driving + under the influence, without the necessary documents or something of that type. Their defence has been that they were not driving.

I think the main point about the 1835 Highways Act and driving, is that in those far off days, "driving" involved urging a horse to giddy up or something similar. AFAIK, decisions on the Highways Act have been based on the principle that the legislators' meant driving in that way. This has been part of the reason why driving motor vehicles on and off the footway has been held not to be an offence under that legislation.

I presume that prior to that legislation being passed, there must have been a certain amount of driving horses etc on footpaths more generally. Some of that will have been the landowner doing as he liked, some will have been the peasantry with livestock to move or whatever. This will have led to rights of way being extended to what I believe are called higher uses and I suspect that was inevitable as the countryside changed, as rights of way have partly been decided by use. Along came pavements, which were footpaths intended to be reserved for "foot passengers " ie people passing and re-passing on foot alongside the nasty, mucky horse muck strewn roads. Without a change in the law, the "higher users" with animals and carriages would have soon established a right of way on them and this could not have been prevented under the old law and customs, where usage decided the status of a right of way. I'm only guessing, but I suspect they saw the creation of a criminal offence as being the best way of preserving the "pedestrians only" status of these new footpaths. When the bicycle was invented later, a ready candidate for use on pavements, it was declared to be a carriage, both by precedent and legislation. Until pretty recently, nobody really questioned any of this. Adult cyclists largely kept off paths of every type.

TBH, I don't give a monkey's if pushing a bicycle constitutes a "vehicle" or not.

If a police officer or another authorised person advises me not to push my bike along a stretch of pedestrian thoroughfare, we come to an amicable arrangement ( me appologising and leaving by the most convenient route ) and no-one is injured or harmed.

Admitting an incident when I was at junior school, I was told to 'get off and push it!" by a Copper in a local park. Immediate dismount and smile of guilt. Nothing further said.

Police officers in shopping centres are more concerned with handbag snatchers and shoplifters than middle aged blokes pushing bikes past Marks & Spencers.

Ayesha wrote:TBH, I don't give a monkey's if pushing a bicycle constitutes a "vehicle" or not. ...

I didn't think anybody had suggested you should be interested in this. Feel free to ignore it.

"ignore it!". No way... Its very interesting.

You should be careful when insisting a pedal cycle is a "vehicle". In my world its an item of sports and pastime equipment. Too much mentioning the word 'Vehicle" to describe a self propelled wheeled machine and you'll end up with pedal cycles being required to have a RFL disc, daytime lamps, flashing amber lamps, 3rd Party insurance, a big sign saying "Slow Vehicle" and compulsory head protection.

We covered the case law on pushing bikes on footpaths (alongside roads) on page 1

drossall wrote:We covered the case law on pushing bikes on footpaths (alongside roads) on page 1

Or a version of it, and not a good one at that. IMO.
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Edit to add. For a bit of backround to what I am trying to say, have a look at this on analysing case law. By coincidence, it includes a case about pedal cycles as carriages (which I've linked before) but it's the principles of "Working with Cases" I am getting at.

http://www.federationpress.com.au/pdf/Pt3WC.pdf

Then have a look at a recent civil case about cycling on a footway, which has also been linked several times on here.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2010/B11.html

drossall wrote:We covered the case law on pushing bikes on footpaths (alongside roads) on page 1

I suppose you mean http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/pushing.html

I don't think it answers all the questions. The quoted cases say that a person wheeling a bike is a pedestrian, and some other things. But on the question on whether wheeling a bike is "leading or driving" it, it merely asserts without reference to statute or case law that:

"Leading or driving" clearly does not apply to a bicycle.

Well, this isn't clear to me. On the contrary, I think wheeling a bike is much like leading a horse or (horse-powered) carriage. Leading a horse or carriage isn't allowed. A bike is a carriage. So leading (or wheeling) a bike isn't allowed.

Ayesha wrote:TBH, I don't give a monkey's if pushing a bicycle constitutes a "vehicle" or not.

Neither do I, in the sense that it won't change my riding/wheeling habits. It's an academic question.

I think the point is that the roads used to be used quite heavily (and still are in rural places) for leading or driving animals. The terms refer to animals and a bike pretty obviously isn't a living thing*. Hence the terms cannot apply. They are not about leading or driving vehicles.

It's more than academic to me because of challenges to cyclists' right to be on the road. Part of the response to that is that a cycle is a vehicle. Gradual undermining of that status as a vehicle could undermine its consequence of a right to be on the road. Nonetheless, at a practical level I see the difficulties in the old idea of wheeling a bike in the gutter, and don't do it.

* Although some here clearly feel that theirs are

Ayesha wrote:TBH, I don't give a monkey's if pushing a bicycle constitutes a "vehicle" or not.

snibgo wrote:Neither do I, in the sense that it won't change my riding/wheeling habits. It's an academic question.

+1
Not only academic, but interesting too.

I said earlier, we can't have it both ways. If a bicycle isn't a vehicle, we will lose many of our rights.
Conversely, if it is a vehicle, we have to obey vehicle law.

Other than that, we ignore the whole thing and ride on pavements, footpaths, and shopping malls with impunity.

snibgo wrote:

drossall wrote:We covered the case law on pushing bikes on footpaths (alongside roads) on page 1

I suppose you mean http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/pushing.html

I don't think it answers all the questions. The quoted cases say that a person wheeling a bike is a pedestrian, and some other things. But on the question on whether wheeling a bike is "leading or driving" it, it merely asserts without reference to statute or case law that:

"Leading or driving" clearly does not apply to a bicycle.

Well, this isn't clear to me. On the contrary, I think wheeling a bike is much like leading a horse or (horse-powered) carriage. Leading a horse or carriage isn't allowed. A bike is a carriage. So leading (or wheeling) a bike isn't allowed.

Ayesha wrote:TBH, I don't give a monkey's if pushing a bicycle constitutes a "vehicle" or not.

Neither do I, in the sense that it won't change my riding/wheeling habits. It's an academic question.

You'd better not let go of your bike when you're leading it...

It might run away !!!

That's a 5 star LOL statement. Made my day.. Thnx.

"A bicycle mechanic from Evans was forced to shoot a runaway bicycle on Birmingham's Corporation Street yesterday, but only after it had rolled over several shoppers. The Bicycle's owner, a fifty one year old from Sutton Coldfield said 'I thought I could lead my bike along the footpath. Someone shouted 'Oi!', my bike reared up and bolted in fright'.


<swearing removed>

A police spokesman stated "This is a very unfortunate incident for all concerned. The gentleman has lost a dear loved one. The council needs to revise its signage about access to bicycles in the city centre."

The person who shouted "Oi!" has yet to be identified, but it is belived he is a member of the AUDI owners club who were drinking heavily in the Midland Hotel just minutes before the incident. A criminal investigation is underway by West Midlands police force."

It's worth remembering that during the almost two centuries which have passed since the passing of the Highways Act, there will have been plenty of decided cases which would be still applicable, or at least still likely to be looked at before a judgment was reached in a modern case. It's worth noting that in the Kotulla case, where the claimant had been on a footway with his bike, the judge made the point that his judgment did not affect the criminal offence: the main point being that faced with the dangers of a busy road (without cycling facilities) it was reasonable for a cyclist to use the footway and that the statutory undertaker was negligent in not maintaining their streetworks so he would be safe. Incidentally, although that case was heralded as exonerating footway cycling, it seems to me just to illustrate how a court might view a personal injury case involving a cyclist who used his experience to decide that he'd prefer to stick to the carriageway rather than a squalid shared-use. In fact, it wouldn't be decisive - these things rarely are - because the issue of whether facilities are safer than the main carriageway was never argued in front of that judge, so his comments were what's called obiter.

Every case of this type that gets to the higher courts involves two sides who expect to win, both usually advised by good lawyers. It's a pity we don't have the full judgment in the Crank case (pushing a bike across a zebra) because I'd be interested to know what the losing side used as the basis of their argument. The claimant was apparently injured pushing a pedal cycle across a pedestrian crossing yet the defence seems to have been that a driver owed him no duty of care. Some experienced lawyer must have thought it would be accepted, but what was their reasoning?

I do not think there is a word in common between s 72 of the Highways Act, 1835 and the pedestrian crossing regs., so there's no strong argument IMO for using one to interpret the other, in either direction.

The 1835 act is an anachronism, with little besides s 72 preserved. It was stretched in Victorian times, half a century after it had been passed - by legislating that a bicycle was a carriage - to deal with the perceived problem of cycling on the footway. It's recently been given a new lease of life by being included in the fixed penalty powers of PCSOs. It's not going to go away. Clutching at straws is futile.

The other point here is what someone carrying his/her cycle is in the eyes of the law. Certainly I remember my father having the theory (where he got if from I do not know) that wheeling a bycycle someone is a cyclist, carrying a bicycle someone is a pedestrian. Thus if you wheeling you bicycle across a zebra crossing you do not have right of way, yet carrying your Brompton, Bickerton, or whatever, you do.

May this provoke more interesting exchanges!

Ian