Cycle paths signs and rules.

[ericmark]

Three blue signs rectangular (Recommended route for pedal cycles), round (Route to be used by pedal cycles only), and round (Segregated pedal cycle and pedestrian route) and at end of route same sign with line through it to show route ended.

However where I live in North Wales we rarely see the end of route signs, and we also see signs with English only writing like "No cycling on the walk way" which I would assume are not official or it would also be in welsh.

The signs in Flintshire for all road traffic is poor, with 20 MPH signs where circle is in black and 20 in red which are it seems advisory only so never have an end of limit they seem to have replaced the normal school signs.

However it is clear as one leaves Queensferry you should be riding on the side pavement, and also clear in the centre of Shotton that to ride on the side pavement would be dangerous and if riding you should use the road, however at what point it changes is unclear, and which side of pavement is classed as walk way and which side is classed as cycle way is not defined.

So has any one been taken to court or other wise fined for riding their pedal cycle on the main part of the road when the signs show the side pavement is for cycles, or reverse cycling on the side pavement when there are no end of cycle route signs but location of shops and density of pedestrian traffic means it could cause a danger.

If the sign said pavement then clearly it refers to whole of paved area, and if there were no signs saying it was a shared cycle and pedestrian pavement then also no question one should not ride on it, but the lack of any sign cancelling the enforced cycling on the side pavement means I am not so sure, could I actually be fined for riding on the road?

I did try to google results and there were reports of people being given on the spot £30 fines but it lumped together disregarding traffic lights, wrong way on one way street and a load of other cycling misdemeanour's and reports like https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38688256 do not help one work out what one should do.

We it seems have a cycle path from Chester and the Wirral all along the North Wales coast and in some places it actually exists, but in many places it just seems to disappear, where power stations, docks or coastal erosion has made it difficult to maintain.

 

[mjr]

The UK blue sign routes are optional not compulsory so you cannot be fined for riding on the carriageway (unlike motorways or special roads like the Edinburgh bypass) and there shouldn't be any court cases for not using them... but there's at least the one involving Daniel Cadden. Not guilty in the end, fortunately.

There have been a few attempts at prosecuting cyclists for straying beyond the shared bit, but they usually depend on too many local factors to generalise IMO.

And the current signs for the end of a shared side path are "cyclists rejoin carriageway" and/or the no cycling one. The confusing "end of route" should not be used since 2012 or 2016 (I forget which) but there's no requirement for highways departments to remove old ones, just like you still see the 1980s form of the blue signs with "End" underneath (which are often vandalised by nicking/covering/spinning the "End")

Edit to add: in most other countries, blue round sign lanes/tracks are compulsory (with exceptions for cycles that don't fit, large groups, tracks in poor repair and so on) even without the adjoining carriageway having red-edged no-cycling signs (as needed in UK to force use of a round-sign route), while rectangular ones are optional. This confuses international tourists, including me in the past.