I like this
The responses to tweets are superb as well.
One for @DomD to think about applying up here?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
How to overtake a Cyclist - Surrey Police
(8 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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Posted 6 years ago #
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The point about not overtaking on the zig-zags leading up to zebra/ ped crossings is another one of those "nobody knows" Highway Code rules (actually, probably Road Traffic Act - these are Musts rather than Shoulds?)
I am usually overtaken in just this way at the pedestrian crossing outside my son's school on my way home each evening (and sometimes in the morning). Slight downhill, 20mph limit of course... At least the evening occurrences are after school hours.
Posted 6 years ago # -
What the Highway Code Rule 165 says is:
You MUST NOT overtake...the nearest vehicle to a pedestrian crossing, especially when it has stopped to let pedestrians cross
It doesn't say you can't overtake at all within the zig-zags, which is what the Surrey Police video seems to suggest, nor does it say that you can't overtake within the zig-zags on the approach to a crossing. It's the nearest vehicle to the crossing that you can't overtake. In practice, of course, that's basically the same as saying you can't overtake on the approach to a crossing, but you can bet your boots that someone, somewhere has tried to use that wording to get off a charge.
The actual law is regulation 24 of the Zebra, Pelican and Puffin Pedestrian Crossings Regulations and General Directions 1997. The slightly bizarre wording is "Whilst any motor vehicle or any part of it is within the limits of a controlled area and is proceeding towards the crossing, the driver of the vehicle shall not cause it or any part of it...to pass ahead of the foremost part of any other motor vehicle proceeding in the same direction" - and it then goes on the clarify that "the reference to a motor vehicle...is, in a case where more than one motor vehicle is proceeding in the same direction as the approaching vehicle in a controlled area, a reference to the motor vehicle nearest to the crossing".
Note that the words "vehicle" and "motor vehicle" are both used, at different points in the wording of the regulation as a whole. It could be read as saying that the prohibition only applies if the moving vehicle being overtaken is a motor vehicle, whereas if the vehicle ahead is stationary waiting for someone to cross then you can't pass it even if it's not a motor vehicle. So in theory it could be legal to overtake a bicycle approaching a crossing and not requiring to stop to let a pedestrian cross. Which seems a bit odd. Either way, it seems clear that the whole regulation only applies to motor vehicles - so cyclists are free to choose to ignore it (like speed limits).
Note that I would in no way condone any of the dodgy-sounding behaviour outlined above. I'm just reporting what the law seems to say, and how I think some people might try to test the limits of what was intended when the law was written.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“SO in theory it could be legal to overtake a bicycle approaching a crossing“
Don’t think it’s theory, that’s how I would interpret the wording.
In practice, I feel, the zigzags and the need for drivers to look for pedestrians makes ‘thinking about giving that bike a wide pass’ is even less likely than on ordinary bits of road.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I can't cite my sources for this as google is failing me... but back in 1991 I passed my driving test because of Douglas Adams. The question was "what should you not do on the zig zag lines beside a pedestrian crossing" and my mind went blank... I had to list several things and I got some of them but the examiner wanted more. Then a little voice drifted into my head of a Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy quote of "bad things that Zaphod Beeblebrox has done"* and one of them was "and parking on the zig zag lines on either side of a pedestrian crossing". "Parking!" I cried out and the test moved on. I passed!
*However now that I'm trying to find this in the script, I can't. Maybe it was an adlibbed thing that never made it in (I had cassettes recorded off the radio on original broadcast from the 70s). I can't even remember where it was to go back and relisten to it.
Posted 6 years ago # -
DON'T PANIC
Posted 6 years ago # -
@LivD: I know the original series of HHGTTG very well - I also have a copy recorded off the radio on the original broadcast, though I have the CD issue as well, which differs in some ways (e.g. it doesn't use Pink Floyd during the scene between Arthur and Marvin on Magrathea - I suspect they couldn't get the rights) and I think I can be pretty confident in saying that there was no such line in that series, or the second series, or the Christmas special. (Whether it might have occurred in the later radio series based on the books I couldn't say: they came much later, and I always felt that they were a somewhat tasteless and rather laboured attempt to cash in on Adams' reputation after his death. I'm also sorry to say that I enjoyed the books much less than the original radio series. I think Adams' literary efforts would have benefited from some rather stricter editing TBH.)
Of course, someone is now going to turn up and prove me wrong...
Posted 6 years ago #
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