Cycling On Pavements

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Profpointy

Legendary Member
I observe most dog owners to be responsible and clean up after their pets.
This generalisation is no more valid than ones about cyclists jumping red lights.

Exactly - as a responsible dog owner he'd know to collect dog poo up in a plastic bag and hang it properly from a tree in the approved manner
 

S.Giles

Guest
Who cares what's legal and what isn't?
That's a very liberal philosophy. I wouldn't ever base my defence on it in court, though!

I've twice been run into by a cyclist whilst using the pavement as a pedestrian. The first time was as a teenager. I deliberately didn't get out of the way of the bike, and the rider spent what I assume was an uncomfortable afternoon in A&E having his 'gentleman's bits' straightened-out after the handlebars turned sideways! The second time I received the injury (a cut hand). Riding on the pavement is not a good idea.
 

winjim

Straddle the line, discord and rhyme
That's a very liberal philosophy. I wouldn't ever base my defence on it in court, though!
No, but if we were all just generally nice to each other, the law would never need to get involved.

Having said that, I've just got off the phone to a copper who's about to come round and take a witness statement from me, so I'm glad the law is there when we need it!
 

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
What's wrong with riding on the road next to the footway? We'd only moan if pedestrians were wandering around all over the road.
it could be a narrowish road with lots of HGV traffic alongside a very wide pavement with barely any peds on it... what's wrong with riding on the footway if I'm not bothering anyone? There's a good handful of such road/pavement set ups around here and I've always opted for the pavement in such circumstances. The fact that many of them have been designated shared use in the last few years means i must have been right all along.
 
How can you tell whether a pavement is shared use or not?

There's a point on my commute where there is a road with a cycle lane, then a roundabout, then a busy road with no marked cycle lane. I used to (guiltily) go onto the pavement on the second road as I need to cross the road in less than 100m anyway, and I don't feel particularly safe on that road. (There are rarely pedestrians, and if there were I would dismount rather than get back on the road)

I noticed the other day that the traffic light at the crossing has a "green man and bike" light, presumably meaning the pavement I was riding on is shared use, but how would I have known this if I hadn't come up onto the pavement anyway?

If the shared use signs are inconsistent or missing, check to see if your local council has any maps of cycle routes on their web site, or see if selecting "Bicycling" when looking at the area on Google maps, or OSM Cycle on RidewithGPS shows them. If you think some markings are missing, then report it to the council.
 

Dan B

Disengaged member
What's wrong with riding on the road next to the footway? We'd only moan if pedestrians were wandering around all over the road.
You might moan. I'd welcome it.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
I've not found a road yet that I was entitled to ride on that I couldn't ride on. Paths are horrible places for bikes. Pedestrians, obstacles, junctions and kerbs frequently punctuation them, all good reasons why cyclists often eschew cycle routes painted onto existing footways.
 

S.Giles

Guest
Paths are horrible places for bikes. Pedestrians, obstacles, junctions and kerbs...all good reasons why cyclists often eschew cycle routes painted onto existing footways.
The pavement was originally conceived for the use of pedestrians, and was therefore optimised for that purpose. The carriageway was intended for everything else, including vehicles such as bicycles. It's hardly surprising therefore that (volume of other traffic notwithstanding) the road is a better place than the pavement to cycle.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
I saw several today of various types of cyclists, the one that surprised me the most was the one on a road bike till I realised he was covering the 30 meters between where a side road entered a dual cartridgeway and the cycle path which he wanted to cycle on against the flow of traffic.

Or cycling to get into a park through which a cycle path goes, often it's just missing the joining part to get onto the cycle path.
 

w00hoo_kent

One of the 64K
My commute home includes around a quarter of a mile of dual carriageway leading to the World of Leather roundabout on the A20. At the end it's shared path with a Toucan crossing to help you towards Catford. But leading to that shared path it's unmarked ped only.

I could walk it. I could go more miles another route. I could sit with traffic, slower than walking. Riding the dual carriageway you have to filter between tightish lanes of traffic, motorbikes often don't have room for. Most importantly at the roundabout the only real safe lane to be in is far left because gaps to cross it are small and rare, filtering would put you between 2 and 3 and a car would have you off every day. So I hit the pavement early, cruise along it at a gentle pace, give way to peds and join the left lane to do the roundabout.

Not definitely legal, but very sensible and something I'm comfortable to justify. There's no reason for the pavement not to be shared use, but then helping cyclists rarely seems to be the point of shared path placement.
 
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