CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
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resolvedQuestion (as posed to me in a snarky FB reply to me posting the picture below): do yellow lines etc apply to bikes? So, are they in the same category as speed limits, or do they apply regardless of vehicle type? I realise I should know the answer to this, but … (incidentally, i just stopped to take the photo, but does the fact I had to get off the bike mean I had parked?)
I am not a lawyer (and I'm sure @Morningsider will be along in a bit to correct me) but this legislation seems to define a 'vehicle' as including a bicycle, because it says:
“vehicle” means a vehicle of any description and includes a machine or implement of any kind drawn or propelled along roads (whether or not by mechanical power);
...and the council's rules on parking reference vehicles, not motor vehicles. Anyway, here's an exemption you could use:
to enable a person to board or alight from the vehicle or to load thereon or unload therefrom his personal luggage: Provided that no vehicle shall so wait or stop in any such road described in Schedule 1 or 2 during the prohibited hours for longer than two minutes;
@Greenroofer - I think you are right. However, it is all academic as:
1. a parking attendant can't issue a Penalty Charge Notice against a bike, as there is no requirement for bikes to be registered or carry registration plates.
2. If a bike is causing an obstruction, it can easily be shifted out of the way.
3. no-one parks their bike on the road as it would be wiped out within minutes.
@Morningsider,
Well, I am an academic, so these things interest me... ;-)
Googling around revealed this site https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/community/how-to/road-positioning
which (interestingly) suggests "Cyclists are allowed to stop on double-yellow lines. Again, drivers may be unaware of this."
I sort-of hope someone somewhere has thought about this - it's going to turn out to be really inconvenient if we can't stop in cycle lanes - how does one get off when one reaches one's destination?
@NiallA - sadly, I find this quite interesting. Worth bearing in mind that "waiting", "parking", and "stopping" are all different things. Stopping, allowing people to get in or out of a vehicle, is allowed everywhere apart from where there are red lines. Loading/Unloading (effectively another form of stopping) is allowed everywhere, apart from on red lines or where there are yellow lines and kerb flashes.
I reckon stopping, dismounting and pushing your bike into the house/stair/garden would count as stopping and is allowed almost everywhere. Add the fact that there is no sanction that can be applied to a cyclists for stopping anywhere, then I don't really think we have anything to worry about.
You have to remember that the TRO system and parking controls were created in the mid-1980s. No-one gave any thought to cycling at all - if you had suggested to the parliamentary draughtsmen that they should consider a scenario involving pop-up segregated cycle lanes, double yellow lines and cargo bikes they would have thought you had been hitting the Hoffmeister particularly hard at lunchtime that day.
@Morningsider: "no-one parks their bike on the road as it would be wiped out within minutes."
I don't disagree with that at all. However, it's my understanding (and I'm perfectly willing to be corrected) that yellow lines apply to the whole of the side of the road they are painted on i.e. from the centre line to the property boundary on the "inner" edge of the footway (if there is one), not just the carriageway. Hence, AFAIK, you can be ticketed for parking fully on the footway where there are DYLs on that side of the carriageway. (Though, as most drivers of motor vehicles seem to know, as things currently stand you can't be ticketed for the act of parking on the footway per se.)
So in theory, and if yellow lines applied to bikes as well as to motor vehicles, it would actually be an offence to e.g. chain your bike to railings outside a property if there were DYLs on that side of the road. But since it appears that DYLs don't apply to bikes, it's probably all moot anyway.
Some (or maybe all?) yellow lines don't apply to pedal cycles. From the draft order for waiting restrictions for trams, the Interpretation section says '"vehicle" means a motor vehicle'.
What slowcoach said. However, no doubt there is some antediluvian unrepealed legislation they would be able to get someone on if they really felt like it (cf 'wanton and furious driving')
@ejstubbs - yes, that scenario was in the back of my mind.
@slowcoach - are you aware of what legislation governs that? The Roads (Scotland) Act linked to by @greenroofer above seems to take the broad definition of vehicle, but doesn't seem to refer to parking, so is there something else that controls the meaning/ powers of yellow lines (or is this handled at local level through Council parking regulations etc)?
Suspect I a thinking about this entirely too much, but I am intrigued by whether there is a definitive piece of legislation or similar.
@NiallA - the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1988 provides the legislative basis for Traffic Regulation Orders, which create individual parking restrictions. There is a definition of "vehicle" in several pieces of legislation, but sections 185-194 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 are probably the most comprehensive.
Having had a bit more time to think about this, I suspect there is no country-wide rule on whether parking restrictions technically apply to bikes. As @slowcoach shows, the details of individual parking restrictions are set out in TROs rather than primary legislation. I suspect most of these are effectively cut-and-paste jobs and include the same definitions, but I don't think they have to.
Of course, that doesn't even get into the philosophical discussion of whether a law really exists if there is no sanction for breaking it...
Is parking on double yellows (or "stopping" longer than a few minutes) more or less likely to be punished by the law than, say, blasphemy? Still on the criminal statute at the moment, though there is a bill proposing to decriminalise blasphemy. So, FPN for blasphemy in a few years? Or not?
@Crowriver - The Scottish Parliament abolished the crime of blasphemy earlier this year.
(I'm not sure if it's one of those things that takes some time to actually be implemented, but I presume not.)
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