Jon Snow / London VeliB-oris -R4 half an hour ago.

[Dan B]

The Highway Code is (as usual) applying its own spin to the actual legislation

Traffic Signs Regulations 2002 says "(e) the amber signal shall, when shown alone, convey the same prohibition as the red signal, except that, as respects any vehicle which is so close to the stop line that it cannot safely be stopped without proceeding beyond the stop line, it shall convey the same indication as the green signal or green arrow signal which was shown immediately before it"

So, "stop unless you cannot stop safely". Nothing in there about causing an accident

 

[Dan B]

And it's not at all obvious to me that he was illegally on the pavement either. Motor vehicle drivers routinely cross footways in order to reach off-street parking without getting out and pushing, and this is not illegal (subject to the rules about dropped kerbs and suchlike, but from my reading these seem to relate only to mechanically propelled vehicles) - it would seem that Mr Snow is doing basically the same thing on his bicycle. So what's the crime?

 

[661-Pete]

I think it's not going to get us anywhere, analysing the Mr Snow's cycling excursions in fine detail and picking on every single infraction, minor or not, and debating the rightness or wrongness of it.

What is more important is, does he represent the cycling community, in the shape of the CTC, in the way we want him to, in the way that acts best for cyclists?

He's a journalist. His life experience is with the Press and the Media. As such, surely he's best equipped, so one would think, for parrying the body-blows from the vilest, most trashy segment of the gutter press and media, which has for years waged a war of attrition against cycling as a whole.

In that respect, I fear, he has failed to deliver. That, I feel, is the main problem.

 

[sunnyjim]

What this episode  tells us is that a discreditable scrawl in the turgid slime of  the Daily Mail has more effect  than a  revealing waft through the  æther from  BBC R4.

 

 

[Hover Fly]

I meant, I think that thought sometimes. Anyway you can only take someone outside and shoot them once...

Didn't the AA and RAC patrolmen use to do just that, in the good ol' days when I were a lad and they were all on motorbikes? I seem to remember they had standing orders to salute any passing car bearing the requisite badge...

Unless there was a police speed trap ahead. One of the reasons the AA was set up was to help motorists evade the speeding laws. At first they would give a sign that there was a trap ahead. When it was deemed illegal to tip motorists off about traps, they started to salute members, after all the motorists were nearly all the upper middle classes and aristocracy so it was natural for the working class patrolman to salute them. If the PM did not salute the member, the member could either stop the PM and ask why no salute, or just assume there was a speed trap ahead.

 

[dellzeqq]

I have to say that when I was a CTC Councillor I was FANTASTICALLY law-abiding. God, it was sickening. I remember leading an FNRttC through Horley at 2.45 in the morning and making 40 people wait for a road-menders 'stop-go' light on a street that wouldn't have seen another moving car or even a pedestrian for an hour or more. Quite why they didn't just throw me in the hole in the ground and carry on I'll never know.

Even now it's all a bit tippy-toes, check three times before you blow your nose stylee, but the point I'm making is that if you are in any way representative of the CTC then you have, to some degree, behave accordingly.

You also have to toe the party line a bit. Roger Geffen has been telling us that it's getting safer and safer to cycle in London (which it is) and that London is the safest place in the UK to cycle (which it is). So......it would have been sensible for Jon Snow to just button it. He's got his private thoughts, but they're completely at odds with the well-known, and well articulated thoughts of the CTC.

Oh - and the chap he almost hit when he was going the wrong way down a one-way street was.........the secretary of his own DA. Does the CTC need a President? I think not.