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20 mph sign (CC BY-ND 2.0 licensed by Tony Hall:Flickr)Huge fine for cyclist caught 'speeding' in Richmond Park
A cyclist was fined £200 after being clocked by a speed gun at 38mph while riding in Richmond Park. This is despite the fact that a Royal Parks spokesman has previous said that speed limits in the places it manages don't apply to cyclists.
Paul Harness was riding down Sawyers Hill on January 11 when he was stopped by a police officer who had been parked behind a tree with a speed gun.
Harness says he was charged with speeding and driving without due care on a bicycle. When he subsequently appeared at Lavender Hill Magistrates on October 10, he was fined £200 for each offence, plus £200 court cost and a £20 victim surcharge.
Harness told road.cc that he pleaded not guilty in the belief that the speed gun was not designed to work on cyclists and that he did not by law need a speed measuring device on his bike.
“I thought the whole affair was a waste of time and money and the policeman was way over the top and the judge would think the whole thing ridiculous. There were crimes going on all around Richmond that day and this fella was hiding behind a tree with a speed gun and I was having a Sunday cycle going down Sawyers Hill.”
As we reported in 2013, there is a large degree of doubt about whether speeding restrictions in London’s Royal Parks actually apply to cyclists. At the time, we concluded that that anyone issued a fine for doing so might have grounds for challenging it.
Indeed in 2014, Royal Parks told Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine that there is no speed limit for cyclists in Hyde Park and, by extension, any of the other 10 parks or open spaces it manages in London. However, none of this seems to have prevented cyclists from being charged.
In March, Rory Palmer was fined for riding his bike at 41mph in Richmond Park on January 2 – again on Sawyers Hill. After pleading guilty to breaking the park’s speed limit of 20mph, magistrates fined him £65 plus a £20 surcharge and he was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £65.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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47 comments
Has there been a spate of accidents in the area or is this just the usual prejudice?
Was he actually pedaling ? If he was freewheeling when clocked then the charges are null and void ! ?
And further more how did the police know that the Cyclist was actually furious ? Ecstatic more like WHEEeeeeeeeeeeee !
And now this comes down to whether or not the fella can afford to take this further, very sad.
Does this really make a difference? There's a descent near me on an A road in a 30mph limit. You peak at about 44-45mph as you pass a speed camera, but (I'm) always freewheeling at that point.
So do we live in a country of law or not? It's unclear.
Am i reading that right - 620 pound fine, including costs?
He should have done it in the car, fine would be about a quarter of that!
And if he'd knocked a cyclist off it would have been even less...
Interesting that there were two charges, but no details about why he was charged with driving without due care. Why don't motorist get charged with this was well as the speeding offence, surely it would be a slam dunk. Not paying attention to speed limit signs = without due care + the speeding offence.
Is "speeding and driving without due care on a bicycle" even a valid charge? Not sure how accurate this is but it wouls suggest not. Maybe...
38mph through a public park with a 20mph speed limit? This would certainly come under the old charge of 'Furious Pedaling' if not being 'Reckless' bordering on 'Dangerous'.
What was this idiot thinking? If he was thinking at all! Not big, not clever and not intelligent!
The only thing that can be argued about is the proportionality of the penalty.
You have evidently never been to Richmond Park, there is an outer perimeter road round the park which is almost wholly devoid of pedestrians and is used by bikes and cars almost exclusively. Due to a long gently sloping downward gradient, it really isn't very difficult to reach 30mph+
Yes I have been to Richmond Park, many times in fact and I do know Sawyers Hill, and I do know that you can build up quite a speed. But ... just because you can does not mean that you should!
I could cycle past my local infants school at 40mph+ (the road has a good slope and gravity loves me!) even though the posted speed limit is 20mph. Does that mean that I should? And what if I did it at a time when children are going to or from the school? As I said - just because you can does not mean that you should.
Err, I've done big speeds down there in the past, before all this fuss started about speeding. Technically cyclists cannot be fined for speeding as a bicycle is not required to have a speed measuring device by law, and any that are fitted do not comply with DfT requirements.
Yes, speeding by that much is a bit silly, but to be honest you can see anyone about to cross the road from a distance in any case. This is not a case of riding past a school at high speed. Plus, physics tells us that the energy involved in a cyclist going that quick is not that much in any case, certainly a great deal less than a 2tonne 4x4 travelling at the speed limit.
A warning to the rider would have been appropriate. A fine is illegal.
I hope the rider is able to contest it.
To be honest, the po;lice could be doing something more appropriate about tackling speeding. On the way home yesterday from the airport in my car, I was tailgated by an articulated lorry because I had the temerity to be driving at the speed limit along the A23 through Croyodn. The driver then went on to make a dangerous overtake of me, followed by two other vehicles. I decided wisely to keep my distance and let the idiot do whatever he wanted in front of me. Why aren't the police tackling speeding by morons in 44tonne trucks instead? The potential for damage they have is rather higher than that of a cyclist.
look I totally agree the police ought to have something better to do tackling bigger road safety issues, and the technicalities of breaking a speed limit on a bike are well worn topics of debate especially in Royal Parks, and the appropriate thing should have been a jolly severe warning, or careless/dangerous cycling, certainly driving a bike without due care & attention sounds a totally made up thing, and its reasonable to question whether a speed gun acurrately measures a cyclists speed, but these are all things that should have been brought up in court if they were of question.
and you might be able to see someone cross in front of you, but would you be able to stop in time, at 38mph its surprising how rapidly you run out of room if you need to stop again, bike brakes arent really designed to stop optimally, and few people will ever grab the brakes fully to prevent locking up their front wheel and producing a comedy falling off.
we know its an area the parks take particular interest and issue with, rightly or wrongly, so a bit of common sense doesnt hurt, its not like its the only hill in the country.
Last time I checked (today) Richmond Park doesn't have a school on Sawyers.
Buggerit, I can't be arsed...
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