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news
No cycling on the pavement sign (CC licensed by Leo Reynolds:Flickr)No more fines for North Londoners caught pavement cycling
Police in Primrose Hill, North London, have said they will no longer penalise cyclists who ride on the pavement, while pledging to look into the reasons why they don’t feel safe on the road.
Sergeant Nick Clarke, who we recently reported was behind a local initiative to crack down on drivers passing cyclists dangerously close, said that although it was technically illegal to cycle on the pavement, the crime was similar to ‘being drunk in a pub’.
He told the Camden New Journal: “We don’t enforce it unless we have good reason. It’s about using common sense and discretion.
“It’s not the scourge of Camden, but if it is happening, we have to look at why. Why are people choosing to ride on the pavement? Then we have to resolve that, so all vulnerable road users are safe.”
Police will continue to stop cyclists they see flouting the law, but instead of a fine or caution, they will be offered advice or “Bikeability” classes.
Sgt Clarke said: “I’ll advise them that, if you are going to ride on the pavement, treat the pedestrians as you would want a car to treat you and recognise they are more at risk than you are.
“The only possibility I can see myself [booking] a cyclist for riding on the pavement is if their riding is so dangerous that it would want to make me leap out the way and chase after them. I’m sure some people will bang a big drum and say that it’s wrong.”
There was mixed reaction locally to the news, with horse racing pundit John McCririck, who lives in Primrose Hill, saying: “If you break the law it should be enforced and the police should at least tell the miscreants that they are breaking the law and there are consequences if they go on doing it, and if it’s a repeated offence there is a penalty to be paid.
“Cycles on pavement are dangerous for everybody there.”
He added: “There has been a lot of favouring of cyclists, and up to a point I’m all for it, having been a tricyclist myself, but at the end of the day it is the police’s job to enforce the law of the land, and in this case they are not doing that and, it seems, deliberately questioning if it is the law of the land.”
In 2014, then Minister for Cycling Robert Goodwill reiterated that the official line from the Department for Transport (DfT) was that cyclists may ride on the footway, provided they do so considerately.
That guidance, issued in 1999 said: “The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show consideration to other pavement users when doing so. Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required.”
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19 comments
"Most of all, though, its your unthinking use of the 'giving us a bad name' trope that makes it impossible to take you seriously. Using that ridiculous phrase is a sure sign that the speaker is not using their brain (see also invocations of 'common sense')."
Indeed. Some of you making comments must be drivers some of the time. Why don't you sort out people who drive badly? They give your lot a bad name...
Valbrona - boy oh boy you certainly know how to win friends !
Not that i'm one of them as i think your answers to what is a very small insignificant problem, compared to the metal machines on the road, are completely WRONG.
I used to ride on the pavement on my daily commute. 100m of climb at about 15% gradient meant I was going at walking pace or barely faster. the road was reasonably busy and too narrow for passing unless noone was coming down.
I would get 2 or 3 dangerous passes a day, and abuse. Or I could use the pavement maybe pass one boy walking to school and if I did give him room by passing on yhe grass verge.
If I had ever been admonished by the police for doing so, my response would be to ride up the hill in the centre of the lane, I really don't see who that would benefit.
I'ts the way people behave, if you ride on the pavement with consideration there is no problem. In Japan people ride pavements with no problem, generally motorists are considerate and courteous
But on a sliding scale of things like 'consideration shown to fellow humans', the British are at the opposite end of the scale to the Japanese, aren't they?
No.
Because you can't sum up two national identities in one sentence, you simpleton.
I was riding with my son a few weeks back. He is 3 and 8 months at that time.
He was obvously riding on the pavement and one guy actually told me off said we can't ride on the pavement or actually the park. He expected me to ride on the road next to the park path and my son should do the same too.
What do you think?
I was so F...ing pissed off and thinking this is world gone made. I was at no time going to risk my son's life just to ride a 5 meter road just to get back into the park when the pavement links it to the park cycle route.
I really want to hit the guy to bring some sense into his brain.
Expect riding in whatever park it was to be subject to a different set of rules than riding on a pavement alongside a street.
I think that if you're going to start a fight, you'd probably want someone a bit older and well trained as back up.
A similar thing happened to my wife, riding to school with our youngest, then age 7. He was on the pavement, a dog walking woman shouted at them and attempted to kick my wife when she remonstrated. A police car passed, the officer suggested he might arrest the dog walker for assault, she screams about riding on the pavement, the response is: "at his age it's the safest place"
People getting irate about pavement cyclists really should get out more and wake up to other greater evils in our modern world. They are hardly up there with suicide bombers now, are they?
depends if they're riding on the pavement for political reasons
My 9 year old son is a pavement cyclist, as the road to his school is an accident black spot where drivers almost without exception exceed the 30 limit by a large margin. Is he selfish and irresponsible too?
John McCockface
'It's as much a crime as being drunk in a pub' says police chief...'
... until a drunk smashes someone in the face with a broken glass.
... or until some idiot riding a bike on a pavement puts some old dear they have collided into in a coma.
What Senior Cop is saying is 'We can't be bothered to enforce the laws of this land'. Only what career cops do not understand is that laws usually exist to make our society safer.
If enforcing rules on pavement cycling is seen as a waste of police money, then decriminalize the activity and get other people enforcing these rules in a more cost effective kind of way.
Totally agree with this commonsense decision. However next to where I live and work there is the coastal cycle path which is on maps etc but nothing on the actual pavement (which is about 20ft wide) or lampposts saying it's a designated route.
The local rag is always full of people complaining about bikes on the pavement without actually knowing it's a cycle path.
whilst I totally applaud the application of common sense here
technically being drunk in a pub is a crime, the licensee is breaking the terms of their license, which I know the police often take a very dim view of,, kind of thing that gets you chucked off the Home Offices Best Bar None scheme and gets followed up with advice being offered to the licensing committee to restrict hours/trading.
so maybe not the best example for them to have chosen
Isn't that the whole point of the analogy? Being drunk in a pub and riding on the pavement are both illegal but rarely cause more than a nuisance and not the type of thing the police are going to get too bothered by, unless there's some other illegal behaviour caused by it.
makes it an excellent analagy since the one facing consequencies is not the one being drunk, but the root cause, which is generaly aggresive drivers fporcing cycliost off the road