Target pavement cyclists, say MPs

[Norm]

...parents give fear of traffic as by far their biggest reason for this...

They are probably scared because they know how they themselves drive!

Is driving your kids because you are scared of the traffic like fighting for peace or screwing for virginity?

 

[ufkacbln]

I have posted this before, but it is a classic example:

Police..... Parking problem.Parking is decriminalised and therefore it is outside their jurisdiction.
City Council... As it is parked on the pavement within a designated area it is a Police problem
Police - Oh No it isn't - it is a parking issue
City Council- Oh NO it isn't see previous reply
Licensing Office - there is sufficient legislation to deal with such issues, it would be inappropriate for us to censure the driver.


Now if it was a cyclist there would be no problem.

That is what worries me - why not clamp down on ALL inappropriate behavior regardless of the vehicle

 

[purplepolly]

make 20mph the default urban speed limit.

Crikey, the traffic would have to speed up round here. Walking pace would be a more realistic speed limit.

 

[WeeE]

Well actually it is children under 16...

One of the things that tends to be forgotten in these arguments about pavement cycling is the fact that many of them are just children...

Oops - you're right, of course. I don't have kids, but I do sympathise with them when I read posts in forums by drivers moaning about "kids playing in the street" - the clear assumption is that kids shouldn't be allowed to run carelessly (ie.e carefree) up and down with their friends outside their own home the way the drivers did when they were kids.

I look at my own street on google maps - a lot of kids in my street - and I was gobsmacked. It literally puts it in perspective: there is actually more room given to cars for (parking and moving) than there is room for people (houses to live in, space to walk on).

I suppose there is already a generation of people now in their20s who were driven to school, driven to after-school things, who didn't play outside, and who never went anywhere under their own steam until their later teens...when many of them got a car themselves, courtesy of the Bank of Mum & Dad: I sometimes wonder if they still feel a little unsafe leaving the house except in a car.

 

[purplepolly]

One of the things that tends to be forgotten in these arguments about pavement cycling is the fact that many of them are just children...

No, that's what worries me. Parents happily let their zero-road-sense offspring cycle on the pavement while managing to forget that there's still such things as junctions.

Last Saturday I saw two young boys (in separate incidents) cycle right across side roads without so much as looking. One of them was hidden by a group of pedestrians before the junction and almost got wiped out by a car turning into the road. Fortunately the driver was going slower than the one turning immediately before him.

In fact, I say twice last Saturday, but actually I see this a lot, especially when I'm cycling home between 4 and 5pm. I can't help thinking that they would actually be safer on the road.

 

[summerdays]

The east end of the town (Charlton Kings) is by comparison well posh.

Charlton Kings has a cycle path running through a park that I've walked through.


Back to the original question, I'm someone who returned to cycling by cycling on the pavements - not in the centre of town but in the suburbs. Gradually I increased the number of roads that I would actually cycle on the road - now I quite happily cycle around St James Barton roundabout in the middle of town (rather than taking the underpasses). So I understand why some people start cycling on the road.

I would like to see alot more training available for adults, hopefully the next generation of children are getting trained though whether their parents actually let them out to use those skills may be debatable.

I get annoyed at those who just do it because they don't care, can't be bothered to follow rules etc, but the parent who is accompanying their small child I can understand.

There is also a point in the legislation that actually allows you to use the "I was scared" in your defence as to why you were cycling on the pavement.

I think its very annoying that the BBC have just picked on this one small point and mis-interpreted it, when I would like the government to take action on the points that weren't mentioned in the BBC report.

 

[very-near]

Thanks - I never knew Cheltenham had whole areas of depraved people! I suppose I imagined it full of posh schoolgirls and spying civil servants (at least while GCHQ was there.) I was using "west end" in a metaphorical, Pet Shop Boys kinda way. Anyway, even if it was fortuitous to some extent (the chance of where the railway track runs) it'll still be interesting to find out what the council's perception was of what they were doing. Cheers!

Depraved, , I actually meant Deprived but I'll go with that

We did once have a Gay Tory MP called Charlie Irving who was a bit of an old queen but that is for another thread

GCHQ is still very much here and backs onto Hesters way as is the Ladies and Boys college (which are central to east side of the town)

the cycle track runs from the railway station to the town centre on one branch, and to the Racecourse on the other branch, there is cycle routes through the park as well which enables us to cover a good distance without actually having to ride in the roads at all (if we live near them), but this cycling provision is very poor when you get to the east side of the town.

 

[dondare]

Quote:

Committee member and Tory MP David Curry said some were "irresponsible and arrogant road users" and said many people believed they took no notice of red lights and believed traffic cones were "not for them".
"The only time I have been knocked down in my life was by a cyclist going like a bat out of hell outside the House of Commons," he said.

I once knocked over a pedestrian outside the House of Commons. It was on the road, tho'.

 

[Stephenite]

I dont get the big hoo-hah in Britain about cycling on the pavement. I live in Norway, and the law states:

3. Sykling på gangveg, fortau eller i gangfelt er tillatt når gangtrafikken er liten og syklingen ikke medfører fare eller er til hinder for gående. Slik sykling må ved passering av gående skje i god avstand og i tilnærmet gangfart.

Basically: Cycling on walkways, pavements, etc is allowed when pedestrian traffic is 'little' and cycling doesn't endander or hinder peds. When passing peds give good distance and cycle around walking speed. (prosecuters will be gangfarted )

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

 

[very-near]

Let's just give up now then shall we?

No, of course not.

It's about a mile and a half from my house to my parents'. About 400 yards is suitable for non-committed road cyclists. By this I mean the groups I mentioned in my linked post and others. So by your reckoning that doesn't matter, as people should walk.

It's nearly 5 miles to work on my commute. It's 2/3 of a mile from my house to a quiet route which would get me the majority of the way there, and then there's a five minute walk at the other end that's busy and congested. You're suggesting that anyone wanting to get to the quiet, 'safer' cycle routes should walk their bike these kinds of distances?

That's just two simple examples. I could give you plenty more. It's daft to suggest that if a cyclist doesn't want to have to become a road vehicle they should either have to push their bike ridiculous distances or walk.

Let's stop seeing a bike as purely a road vehicle and instead accept it as the unique and essential form of transport. View it that way and we might make some progress. Suggest to people that if they're not confident enough or prepared to mix with heavy traffic and we'll get nowhere.

I am more than happy to get off and push my cycle through the town centre where directed to as I know it can freak peds out. I know you would like to see cycles as an androgynous type blend of pedestrian and road, but the reality is I know of no one who can potter along at 15mph on foot without breaking a sweat after a couple of hundred yards.
If all cyclists were as sensible and restrained as you, then it wouldn't even be debated, but the reality is that there are many who just see themselves as wheeled pedestrians and don't stop to consider that they are moving at relatively high speeds in comparison to someone on foot.

Pedestrians have a right to be given due respect when on the path by the faster moving vehicle. We rightly ask demand this of motorists on here don't we when cycling

 

[Norm]

New St in Birmingham is mainly pedestrianised. It's also a marked cycle route. It works.

Swinley Forest is thousand of acres of cycle route, which is also used by peds and dogs, and I've never seen anything other than a friendly "hello" between any members of the two groups. I use the dog walkers as an excuse to take a breather.

 

[brokenbetty]

Let's just give up now then shall we?

Give what up? I really don't understand your agenda.

Some people, at some points in their cycling careers, will decide some routes are not suitable for them. That's their call. It might be a shame, but it doesn't create an obligation for the rest of us to accommodate them.

You seem to be saying that unless every route is available to every cyclist at every skill level then no one will cycle at all.

It's about a mile and a half from my house to my parents'. About 400 yards is suitable for non-committed road cyclists. By this I mean the groups I mentioned in my linked post and others. So by your reckoning that doesn't matter, as people should walk.

If they refuse to cycle on the road and there really truly honestly isn't a quieter route (really? you live in a city and there is only one route between your house and your parents' ?) then of course they need to find alternative transport. It doesn't stop them cycling other places, and it doesn't stop them cycling that route in future when they are more confident. I don't see the problem.

It's nearly 5 miles to work on my commute. It's 2/3 of a mile from my house to a quiet route which would get me the majority of the way there, and then there's a five minute walk at the other end that's busy and congested. You're suggesting that anyone wanting to get to the quiet, 'safer' cycle routes should walk their bike these kinds of distances?

If they want to commute from your house to your place of work by bike but aren't prepared to ride on busy roads? YES. It seems a perverse choice of transport under those circumstances, but if that's what they choose then fair enough.

I don't think the alternative, to deliberately plan a commute that includes 2/3 mile riding on the pavement, is anything other than disgustingly selfish.

That's just two simple examples. I could give you plenty more. It's daft to suggest that if a cyclist doesn't want to have to become a road vehicle they should either have to push their bike ridiculous distances or walk.

No, it's daft to suggest that pedestrians accommodate cyclists who aren't confident in traffic but still demand to use traffic-heavy routes.

Here's an example for you. I ride up a busy, steep, 2 lane hill every morning. I see as many cyclists - adults - on the pavement than on the road. They rarely have lights or light clothes. They get in pedestrians' way and get tangled up with bus queues.

Now it may well be that if they didn't take that hill on the pavement they wouldn't commute on a bike, but I don't see the benefit to some selfish individuals outweighs the disruption and unpleasantness they cause the pedestrians, who after all do NOT have option of using the road.

Let's stop seeing a bike as purely a road vehicle and instead accept it as the unique and essential form of transport. View it that way and we might make some progress. Suggest to people that if they're not confident enough or prepared to mix with heavy traffic and we'll get nowhere.

Agenda again. Where exactly are "we" trying to get?

I'm certainly not trying to get somewhere where every time I walk down a pavement I have to keep looking out for bikes coming up behind me, or look both ways when leaving a shop in case the Madonna of the Bicycle Baby Carrier cannons into me.

If you want shared use paths beside busy roads then agitate for that. If you want better bike awareness from other road users then agitate for that. Don't just give anyone on two wheels carte blanche to ride down any pavement. It's a lazy solution, it's not fair and it's not necessary.

On the other hand, I think any cyclist at all is welcome to ride on the pavement as long as they weld pink stabilisers to their bike

 

[Norm]

Conversely, nearly all the cycle routes near me, including the main one between Windsor and Maidenhead, are converted pavements. By converting pavements (often only a few feet wide) to include cycle paths, the local council are removing the distinction, which does not make it easy to enforce anything on the foot-only paths.

 

[purplepolly]

If they want to commute from your house to your place of work by bike but aren't prepared to ride on busy roads? YES. It seems a perverse choice of transport under those circumstances, but if that's what they choose then fair enough.

But not half as perverse as choosing to drive to work on a congested road and ... increasing the congestion.

 

[Perfect Virgo]

My mom rode on the pavement most of the time when she was in her sixties and seventies.

I can remember back when I was at school following my mom home, the two local beat Bobbies waved and said a cheerie "Hello Winnie" as we rode past on the opposite pavement.

I have said before on this forum Solihull police turn a 'blind eye' to cyclists on the pavement who are not causing any disturbance. i.e. Ladies and young children, the elderly and a Middle aged man on a BSA 20 going to Sainsbury's.

Shock, horror.. MPs ignore the elephant in the room - the fact it isn't cyclists killing & maiming thousands of people every year, it's motorists. Quelle surprise! Not.

I don't like pavement cycling - don't agree with it, don't do it. BUT, when policing resources are limited, surely it makes sense to concentrate resources on the biggest danger and the area that can really save lives? That would be more serious policing of motorists (and I am a motorist, cyclist & pedestrian).

I think fraudulent claiming by MPs of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money is more of a concern to me than their 'concerns' about cyclists

Sensible points. There are many wrongs in British society and police resources are stretched so I believe a more pragmatic approach would represent better use of taxpayers' money (and I still pay a good deal of UK tax). Cynics might say the Public Accounts Committee's statement is a diversionary tactic, as in ComedyPilot's point above.