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news
Victoria_Street_West,_Grimsby_-_DSC07296.JPGCyclist ordered to pay over £1,000 for riding bike in town centre – after council accused of targeting “old and slow”
A female cyclist has been ordered to pay over £1,100 in fines and costs for riding her bike through Grimsby town centre, just months after unhappy locals claimed that the council was imposing the cycling ban unfairly and targeting “old and slow” cyclists, instead of cracking down on anti-social behaviour.
31-year-old Grimsby resident Lauren Cullum was found guilty this week of breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) after she was spotted riding a bicycle in a pedestrianised zone in the town. She was issued a fine of £660, and also ordered to pay a victim services surcharge of £264 and costs of £226, Grimsby Live reports.
In contrast, in the same week at Grimsby Magistrates’ Court, Paul Berry pleaded guilty to driving at 50mph on a 40mph road. He was disqualified from driving for seven days, fined £60, and ordered to pay a victim services surcharge of £16.
In 2019, Grimsby became one of a number of towns to impose a cycling ban in pedestrianised zones, using a PSPO which the council claims was introduced to deal with nuisance, anti-social, and dangerous behaviour in the town centre and along Cleethorpes seafront.
It was extended last July and will now last until 2025, with over 1,000 fixed penalty notices issued since 2019, the bulk of which have been for cycling on Victoria Street South and walking dogs along the main beach.
In June, four separate cyclists, ranging in age from 31 to 65, were found guilty of breaching the PSPO, with all four being fined £220 and ordered to pay almost £300 in costs.
Meanwhile, last October the local council faced a backlash from residents after a pensioner was fined £100 for cycling through the town centre, with some accusing the council officers of targeting “old and slow” riders while ignoring youths “racing up and down”.
Barrie Enderby, 82, told North East Lincolnshire Council he would “rather go to prison than give them £100” and that they could “stick it up your a*se”, after he was fined for breaching the PSPO.
Following Enderby’s fine, unhappy locals launched a scathing critique of how the PSPO is being implemented, and claimed that council officers are not imposing the cycling ban fairly, and rather than cracking down on anti-social behaviour they are seemingly “targeting” people “they can get away with doing so”.
In social media posts shared at the time, one person said they witnessed the incident which saw Mr Enderby fined and claimed that there had been “other young lads riding past” who officers “didn’t bother to stop”.
Another claimed she had also been “targeted”, while someone else reported seeing “three youths doing wheelies and racing up and down” while a council officer “just stood [by]”.
In one reply a local woman said: “Catching all the wrong ones... I sat and watched them all last week, only targeting the old and slow cyclists that aren’t in anyone's way.”
However, that particular fine didn’t seem to galvanise much debate on whether PSPOs are indeed appropriate in the first place.
Active travel charity Cycling UK has long been a prominent critic of PSPOs, which it says have the effect of criminalising cycling, with head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore pointing out that the orders only discourage people from riding bikes into town.
> Bedford cyclists protest ‘discriminatory’ town centre bike ban
North East Lincolnshire Council stressed last October that they want Grimsby town centre to be a “safe environment people can enjoy” and warned they will “take action against those who seem intent on causing a nuisance”.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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55 comments
So if she was cycling like 10mph faster than the allowed pedestrian speed and got a fine of 3 times the value of a decent brand new commuter bike, should we expect 40k fines for motorists exceeding by 10mph speed limits?
Just give them the typical motorist excuse: the signage was unclear because I was cycling too fast to read it.
"Sun was in my eyes"
... no wait, Grimsby right?
I suspect this is one where a savvy lawyer could trample over the council.
It is a requirement in law that a council act reasonably and there are are myriad of ways you can show the council have acted unreasonably - trapping law-abiding citizens in their attempts to deal with problem people, not banning cars and delivery vehicles but banning cycles and so on.
Mr Loophole would make mincemeat of them.
The problem for the victim here is sticking with the ticketing system rather than attacking the council for imposing an unreasonable system.
Faced with a legal bill for a legal challenge, I would guess they would cave very quickly.
IIRC such challenges have to be within a few weeks of when the PSPO is implemented, and via the HIgh Court.
We as road users must obey the law, I cycle and drive and i am sick of cyclists lycra clad normally who go whizzing passed me at red traffic lights, Who seem to think you do not need to indicate on junctions expecially when turning left or at roundabouts? That a sign saying one way street or no cyclists does apply to us?
People riding without lights and riding in all black or dark colours in twilight or at night.
If we want respect we need to show respect and their is a sizable minority of us that dont expecially in urban areas.
We need to do these things and if not the culprits should be fined and righly so.
If i drive at night without lights im fined, If i jump red lights or drive up a 1 way street im fined.
When we are cycling its no different wether its me on my Pashley or any other cyclists.
I
The Daily Mail comment forum is right over there.
But you're not fined, are you?
"Lawless Cyclists - typical" is one of the great lies that the drivers have managed to instil in the public mind, a myth behind which their industrial scale offending, often with deadly consequences - is able to hide in plain sight.
I dont read the daily mail i read Private eye thank you. I cycle and wow and betide i dont agree im a raving daily mail reader?
That says rather alot about yourself?
I have stated facts and i suggest we cyclists face them.
I was told many years ago if you want to moan at your dogs or your children if 95% of the time you look in the mirror, the person responsible is looking straight back you!
What are you on about?
I'm no more responsible for a cyclist going through red than I am for a driver.
It is the summer hols though.
.
Damn! I was still struggling to mark them all on my card!
This one sounds like "but if I did it as a motorist they'd throw the book at me!" Well, unless the book was "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels ..." I'm pretty sure this has actually been examined and shown not to be the case for several different categories of offense (some articles / stories on this in road.cc?)
I think it is true there is less policing of cyclists though not sure if it's proportionally less. RLJ in certain areas* aside I suspect this is for good reason by the police e.g. less serious offenses because much less harm in practice **.
Not just "they didn't have a tabard on" / "how would I stop them" / "the all-powerful cycling lobby / the wokerati would cancel me if I hassled one".
* London often gets reported here.
** I've never been pulled over for having pedal reflectors not visible from behind; a fortunate oversight for an occasional recumbent rider.
That shows you up as typical university type i encountered a few of you around Oxford when i worked in Wheatley.
I notice you dont address the points i made but thats a typical Guardian reader.
Mick Lynch the excellent leader of the RMT speaks eloquently about people like you, He has you spot on they talk and pontificate, Then patronise and look down at you yet never answer the questions put!
Well it doesn't work with me try answering the questions!
What questions?
They're with the "stated facts". Absent.
That's a full house again! I do appreciate you've managed to say I'm tackling the man and not the ball while doing exactly that yourself. I'll take that as showing me, not telling me!
I have to give you credit, from a sentence of 12 words you managed to identify that I did go to a university some decades ago. Bravo! Never knew how obvious I was to a "non-typical university type" - or is it "typical non-university type" - like yourself.
Unfortunately you've drawn a blank on the Guardian. Mind you I have read it more than once - is that enough?
I haven't answered your questions as you just had some rhetorical ones in your first offering. You then asked some questions to someone else. Are they some of the ones answered here?
People do post with the perspective you seem to have here on road CC. You'd be right to think it's a minority viewpoint. However most people here have been irritated by some other stupid / selfish or illegal thing they've seen some other cyclist do.
Plenty of good debate on how the public perceives cyclists and what that means / what if anything can be done about that. However nothing yet that's convinced that a few other cyclists breaking the law are my personal responsibility. Or that's dragging "our" image in the mud especially (people are already primed to dislike cyclists). Or that by being especially good / joining in the ranting against "those" cyclists I can do anything to change everyone else's perspective. And certainly not that most of the lawbreaking by people on bikes should be a major issue of concern to society - there's a whole bunch of bigger transport issues.
You lost me at "I cycle.......lycra clad"
There's a strange smell in here...... whiff of "as a cyclist myself...." maybe?
I will spell it out to you i ride my bike to work and i ride in my work clothes wearing an orange HV vest.
I ride a Pashley i know how to stop at traffic lights, indicate using both arms and know you give way to the right at roundabouts.
I also have front and rear lights i am sick to the back teeth of mainly lycra clad weekenders and self righteous people who think the highway code does not apply to us.
The smell you get is from the 120 cows i milk!
Good for you. Really pleased for you.
I agree.
Traditional farmer then, not got the automatic milking machines frtom the 60's yet?
Give him time, I think he's only just moved to the countryside from leafy Essex.
What's your average speed & what are your views on Nick Freeman?
"Mick Lynch the excellent leader of the RMT..." has a real whiff of "Leading road safety expert.." about it.
For someone so intent on not breaking rules your standard of English isn't great.
Here we go from a self righteous person who like the rest of your ilk thinks your never wrong and despise working class / blue collar people.
Yet doesnt address the facts !
Hows the Guardian today!
Very well thanks. Just doing the crossword as we speak.
Did you read the part in the article when a driver did something far far more dangerous than anything you mentioned and got a slap on the wrist?
I'd forgive you for not noticing as it's so common it's barely note worthy at this point.
Also can't remember the last time I saw a motorist use their indicators, they tend to just go.
I am talking about cyclists in general viewed by another cyclist and the lack of respect we show each other, pedestrians and other road users.
Lots of sweeping generalisation & "your lot" type of stereotyping going on though. Doesn't lend itself well to anything other than the suggestion that you're either 1) yet another persona of our friend (in which case, myaaaa!) or 2) in the wrong place, wilfully or otherwise.
I'm just off to read Viz & then my copy of the incredibly helpful & informative "Protect & Survive" guide by the way in case that affects your judgement of my social class and character.
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