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"Hundreds fined as police launch crackdown on pavement cyclists" - Manchester

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  1. "No matter what you ride... As long as you do..."

    Though I have to admit, whenever anyone asks for my advice on buying a new bike I steer them away from cheap full-suspension machines ("Yes, it would be really really comfortable over the cobbles. You'll also arrive anywhere you're going twice as knackered, trust me. No I know the man in JJB Sports said it had Shimano gears." - I remember my other half getting her mountain bike, and finding the difference on changing to slick tyres absolutely unbelievable - should continue that progression with a 700c bike sometime soon, though with something like 35s on there).

    I digress. As someone once said something along the lines of, "I do not despair every time I see a human being on a bike". Although back to the OP, I still really don't like pavement cycling.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  2. cb
    Member

    "When I see an adult on a bicycle I do not despair for the future of the human race."

    H.G. Wells

    Anyone know when he said it and his reasons for not despairing?

    Posted 12 years ago #
  3. mgj
    Member

    I'm not being snobby about their choice of bike, just pointing out that it seems to (self) limit their ability to cycle on the road. I was in the gym this morning at Warrender and in a half hour saw six bikes whizzing along, 50/50 MTB/racer.

    To be honest, they can ride what they like, as long as they keep off the pavement

    Posted 12 years ago #
  4. cb
    Member

    Council solution would be to put cobbles on the pavement.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  5. mgj
    Member

    badly, at great cost, like when they relaid the setts

    Posted 12 years ago #
  6. cc
    Member

    It's human nature to take the course that appears to be (1) safer and (2) easier, more direct. The smart thing is therefore to arrange the roads (paths, whatever) so that cycling looks and is safe, and so that it's more direct and quick to cycle than to drive.

    Again, this is perfectly doable because they've already been doing it for decades in the Netherlands, with fantastic results. You just have to have authorities who care about the health of the people, the prosperity of the town, the levels of exhaust emissions, noise levels, and all the rest of it. And perhaps who are capable of logical thought and of looking beyond their own country's borders.

    Maybe if Majorca or Tenerife was a cycling paradise we'd see plenty of fact-finding trips and better road infrastructure :)

    Posted 12 years ago #
  7. fimm
    Member

    Actually Mallorca is a popular destination for cyclists - roadies on early season training trips...

    Posted 12 years ago #
  8. recombodna
    Member

    To be fair Thirlestane road's setts are some of the worst in town even on a mountian bike.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  9. Peterward2008
    Member

    I cycle my road bike and commute on it to work. Mainly in and around North Edinburgh with its newly resurfaced cycle route. Agree some of the potholes, cobbles etc are bad for bikes (bad for cars and buses also) but its the only bike I have for reasons pretty similar to Fimm. I also like to use it at weekends to do longer rides. Though I am using 25s not 23s so that perhaps precludes me from the too skinny wheel club.

    As for pavement cycling. With kids is ok by me and in extremis to avoid danger/injury too.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  10. PS
    Member

    @gembo "Found 32mm tyres on sit up easier over cobbles easier than 28mm on tourer, maybe on super skinny you stand up out of the saddle?"

    No - stay seated and power over them. Getting out of the saddle on cobbles can be pretty hairy.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  11. Uberuce
    Member

    Well, there you go. Horses for strokes and saucy owns - any time the surfaces is uncertain I rise out the saddle. Just feels like my legs can't tell the bike what to do when I'm sitting down.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  12. crowriver
    Member

    I come out of the saddle if there are cobbles, bumpy bits, etc. I'm not racing Paris-Roubaix so I'd rather have the suspension of my knees than gain a few extra seconds.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  13. Peterward2008
    Member

    I come out of the saddle for potholes. Cobbles I tend to avoid or sit down on and get wobbly arms and legs after.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  14. Instography
    Member

    I tend to come out of the saddle and relax my grip on the bars in the hope that the bike bounces through them, pivotting around my feet rather than crashing through them getting pinch flats.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  15. Peterward2008
    Member

    Next time I have this misfortune... I will stand up and see how that works..

    Posted 12 years ago #
  16. PS
    Member

    Relaxing my grip on the handlebars makes me want to have a firm point of contact at my rear. :)

    Posted 12 years ago #
  17. Instography
    Member

    That's extra.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  18. Snowy
    Member

    Are we still talking about cycling?

    Posted 12 years ago #
  19. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    This thread's very funny if you read pavement cycling as a euphemism for anal sex.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  20. Instography
    Member

    Proud to pound the pavement.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  21. Firedog
    Member

    Would be nice if the police took a similar approach to pavement drivers, especially when they park like this. I found this car (FX6I WLW), parked right across what passes for a pavement on Saughton Road North this morning at 8:35, 200 yards from the local school. It forced schoolchildren and parents with buggies walking to school right out into the flow of oncoming traffic.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  22. chdot
    Admin

    Think that is technically a parking warden rather than police issue - though you'd hope they'd have said something if they'd seen it.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  23. Instography
    Member

    Seeing as it's a hire car (the small eurohire badge and the bottom right of the tailgate) it would be OK to just walk right over the top of it, kicking the windows in as you go.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  24. Nelly
    Member

    Insto, Oooooo, have not indulged in that kind of behaviour since majorca 2001, but sounds satisfying !!

    Posted 12 years ago #
  25. Cycle PC
    Member

    Hi,

    Parking on the pavement, as far as the police are concerned, is an issue of obstruction. ie it's not an offence to park on pavement, but is an offence to cause an obstruction to another roaad user (which includes pedestrians).

    Did you report this incident? By the looks of the photograph, there is minimal space available on the pavement, as you say. This would be classified as an obstruction and Police Officers / Traffic Support Wardens would have been able to take action.

    Hope this helps.

    Paul

    Posted 12 years ago #
  26. Tulyar
    Member

    This is where the law is made to be a laughing stock, and we might be able to change this in Scotland with some powerful lobbying.

    To park in that position the car has to have been driven on the footway (pavement is an ambiguous term - it refers to any paved surface and in the US generally refers to the carriageway) riding or driving a carriage on the footway as been an offence since 1835 and the same deal applies to both cycles and motor cars, and road locomotives.... each being embraced by the term carriage in enabling legislation (cycles beating cars by 25 years IIRC).

    Thus, observing the sheer number of cars with wheels on the footway, a far greater number of drivers should be getting FPN's for using the footway than cyclists - a detail confirmed by the number of pedestrians killed and injured by cars driven on the footway.

    Now here's the rub, a parked car is not being driven on the footway and there is no driver present to charge with the offence, so although everyone knows the offence has to have been committed (the cars don't simply bounce up onto the footway), so the Police don't prosecute - unless they go for obstruction - preventing 'traffic' ie traffic proceeding on foot, from passing along the footway.

    Yet prosecutions of the registered keeper of the car can take place if a photograph of the vehicle, is taken - going past a red traffic signal, exceeding the speed limit, using a road over which that vehicle is not permitted to travel, and even used to affirm obstruction and parking offences, and the registered keeper is obliged to provide details of the driver, or take the hit themselves. yet this same logic cannot be applied to a motor vehicle parked with 2 or more wheels on the footway. It shouldn't take much to amend legislation surely - to make a photograph of a vehicle with its wheels on a footway enough to use the existing law effectively.

    Plus of course it would be great to get a real figure for car drivers committing the offence for which cyclists are so often pilloried.

    Anyway the driver should still be getting as parking ticket for parking on a single yellow line, as 2 wheels are on the road at that point.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  27. Instography
    Member

    Or they could just pick them up and take them away, charging the registered keeper an appropriate fee to recover it.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  28. fimm
    Member

    Cycle PC, thank you for the clarification, but how would one go about reporting such a thing? Dialling 999 would be a bit excessive, I think...

    Posted 12 years ago #
  29. Nelly
    Member

    Tulyar, Craiglockhart avenue a good case in point - so many cars mounted the pavement in the morning rush hour that the council had no choice but to erect barriers with reflective tape - simply to protect people walking up past the old Land Rover garage from impatient drivers.

    Posted 12 years ago #
  30. Cycle PC
    Member

    Hi,

    If you wish to contact the police for any non-emergency, you can phone 0131 311 3131, which will put you through to the Force Communication Centre, who will deal with your call.

    Full contact details are found here: -

    http://www.lbp.police.uk/contact_us.aspx

    Hope this is useful,

    Paul

    Posted 12 years ago #

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