Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

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Mick F
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by Mick F »

The highway code is very much dumbed down, and they use the word "road" when they actually mean "highway". Some roads aren't highways for instance - there is a difference.

There wouldn't be a stop line on the footway, because a vehicle shouldn't be there in the first place.
Pushing a cycle along a footway is/was illegal, therefore a stop line is pointless.

The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.
The stop line and the traffic lights are besides the point.
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stewartpratt
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by stewartpratt »

Mick F wrote:The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.


Yes, precisely. That's what I was originally alluding to, albeit perhaps not terribly clearly :)
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by snibgo »

"No white line" doesn't provide an exception. IIRC, although I can't find the legislation: if there is no white line, the stopping point is at the lights.

john_ellison wrote:All carriages and conveyances are required to stop at a red light ...

What legislation says that? The one I cited says "vehicular traffic". Nothing about carriages and conveyances. TSRGD doesn't define "vehicular traffic", although this does include pedal cycles (TSRGD s33).

However, I think this is always interpreted as pedal cycles that are being ridden. I am not aware of any statute or case law that that defines wheeled bikes (let alone buggies) as "vehicular traffic".
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661-Pete
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by 661-Pete »

Mick F wrote:The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.
That would be absurd, surely!

Lots of people (including me) need to get their cycle across a footway in order to gain access to their residence. All right, it is usually only necessary to push one's bike across the footway rather than along it - but if there is an obstruction e.g. a parked vehicle, I have to push the bike along the footway a short distance.

Furthermore, am I breaking the law every time I drive my car across the footway to get in or out of my driveway?
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thirdcrank
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by thirdcrank »

snibgo wrote:"No white line" doesn't provide an exception. IIRC, although I can't find the legislation: if there is no white line, the stopping point is at the lights....


While the last bit is effectively the case, that's not quite what the legislation says. It's all here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002 ... on/43/made

I presume you are thinking of this bit:

Where no stop line has been provided in conjunction with light signals or the stop line is not visible ...


That does go on to say that the signal then becomes the stopping place. There's nothing that covers the circumstance here, where a stop line has been provided and a vehicle crosses a projection of it. (I'm not suggesting that that weakens what I posted above, just that this doesn't add to the interpretation.)
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by snibgo »

Thanks, TC, indeed that's what I was thinking of. True, it isn't explicit about whether it's permissible to dodge around the ends of the stop line, but I can't see a judge being sympathetic to someone who tries that argument.

661-Pete wrote:Furthermore, am I breaking the law every time I drive my car across the footway to get in or out of my driveway?

No. Legslation (I forget where) permits crossing footways for access.
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gaz
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by gaz »

john_ellison wrote:...I maintain that the red light still applies to you even if you are on the footway - i.e., if you are pushing a bicycle or other wheeled conveyance (e.g. wheelchair, baby buggy) along the pavement, you are still required to stop at a red light...Can anyone give us a definitive answer?

Not I. However I can give you the following pointers:

Extract from Highway Code 1978, revised 1983.

You must, even if you are wheeling your cycle,

- observe amber and "STOP" signals, traffic signs which give orders, double white lines (solid or broken), yellow road markings and the directions of a police constabe controling traffic;


Referenced Acts and Regulations are:
Road Traffic Act 1972 Section 22; "Pelican" Pedestrian Crossings Regulations and General Directions 1969, No.10;
Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 Sections 1, 6, 9 and 43.

Before you leap for joy there are some very big points to note.

That edition of the Highway Code does not explicitly state that a bike can be wheeled legally on a footway.
However it implies that a bike should be wheeled in the carriageway, from which I'd assume that the above points apply to a cycle being wheeled on the carriageway:

You must
- at night, if you are wheeling your cycle or are stationary without lights, keep as close as possible to the nearside edge of the road.


Referenced Acts and Regulations are:
Road Traffic Act 1972 Section 74.

That edition of the HC and all the Acts and Regulations mentioned have since been superceded. I do not know and am not inclined to investigate how the legal smallprint may have changed.


One aspect of Crank v Brook (The Zebra Crossing Case) is that part of the decision to see the cyclist wheeling their bike as a simple pedestrian was that they had begun their journey on foot. Even if it is legal to wheel your cycle on a path, I would still expect you to feel the long-arm of the law should you ride along the road to the stop line, hop off, walk past the red light and get back on again.

Now does anyone want to look up the position when riding on a shared use footway adjacent to a set of traffic lights? :wink:
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Adam S
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by Adam S »

Not directly relevant to lights, but the current HC Rule 77 suggests (in reference to roundabouts) "You may feel safer walking your cycle round on the pavement or verge", indicating a degree of flexibility in whether cyclists choose to approach these junctions as cyclists or as pedestrians.
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gaz
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by gaz »

Good point, by comparisson the edition I quoted also suggests that at roundabouts you may "get off your cycle and walk" but does not specify on the footway.
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by thirdcrank »

661-Pete wrote:
Mick F wrote:The debate therefore is whether it is actually illegal for a cycle to be pushed along the footway.
That would be absurd, surely!

Lots of people (including me) need to get their cycle across a footway in order to gain access to their residence. All right, it is usually only necessary to push one's bike across the footway rather than along it - but if there is an obstruction e.g. a parked vehicle, I have to push the bike along the footway a short distance.

Furthermore, am I breaking the law every time I drive my car across the footway to get in or out of my driveway?


Pavement cycling has been a frequent subject over the last year or two on here, partly because more people seem to do it than was once the case and sometimes because alleged offenders have received a fixed penalty notice (AKA ticket.) I've tried to cover some of these questions so often I'm blue in the face, as they say. Seeing through the fog hasn't been helped by some poorly-researched stuff on the internet which has been repeated so often it's become accepted as gospel.

A summary.
The legislation banning pavement cycling is so old that it pre-dates the invention pedal cycle. Some older riders (including me) were brought up to believe that wheeling a bike on the pavement was taboo, and that's the position taken by the Highway Code until relatively recently. Nowadays, various govt publications imply that wheeling a bike on the pavement is OK but we've never found anything definitive which says why that is so and why the change occurred.

On the question of crossing the pavement, the HC has a paragraph saying that it's OK for motor vehicles but the equivalent paragraph for pedal cycles is silent on the subject. This may seem to be nitpicking but we did have one thread where cyclists were riding across a pavement to reach a public cycle parking stand and PCSO's were issuing them all with tickets. (I couldn't find that thread just now.)

I have dug out a few threads - several quite long - which have dealt with some issues raised. They include links to others.

Wheeling bikes on footpaths.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=58082

Crank v Brooks - a case about a cyclist walking across a pedestrian crossing being a pedestrian
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58598&p=494475

I have found a couple of threads about tickets for pavement cycling:

A case outside the School of Oriental and African Studies where a lot of tickets were issued where it wasn't a footpath within the Highways Act.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58539

Fighting a fixed penalty This was initially about a place where the extent of facilities was unclear:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65162
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by snibgo »

The 1954 Highway Code includes, in the legal bit at the back:
You must, even if you are wheeling your bike, observe traffic signs and signals and the directions of a police officer directing traffic. R.T.A. 1930 Sect. 49
(My emphasis.)

So that sent me scurrying to the RTA 1930. Section 49 is:
Where a police constable is for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic in a road, or where any traffic sign being a sign for regulating the movement of traffic or indicating the route to be followed by traffic, has been lawfully placed on or near any road in accordance with the provisions of the last preceding section, any person driving or propelling any vehicle who--
(a) neglects or refuses to stop the vehicle or to proceed in or keep to a particular line of traffic when directed so to do by the police constable in the execution of his duty; or
(b) fails to conform to the indication given by the sign, shall be guilty of an offence.
(My emphasis.)

From this I deduce that, back in those olden days, a person wheeling a bike was regarded as a person propelling a vehicle, but not driving it.

The 1954 Highway Code goes on to say:
You must not wilfully ride on a footpath by the side of any road made or set apart for the use of foot-passengers. H.A. Sect 72

It could have said "even if you are wheeling your bike", but it didn't. Our old favourite 1835 Highway Act s72 refers to people who "willfully ride ... or willfully lead or drive ... cattle or carriage of any description..."

So, in 1954, they didn't reckon wheeling a bike on a footway was illegal.
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by kwackers »

gaz wrote:Good point, by comparisson the edition I quoted also suggests that at roundabouts you may "get off your cycle and walk" but does not specify on the footway.

You'd need to be brave or stupid to walk a bike across the mouths of most traffic islands in the road, I'd expect you'd get more than a mouthful from motorists too! :lol:
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by Adam S »

I recalled reading something a while back about the CTC having campaigned (many years ago) for a change in law regarding cyclists wheeling bikes so that they could walk against oncoming traffic (as pedestrians), rather than with traffic (as someone pushing a vehicle).

A quick search came up with this article: http://www.ctc.org.uk/blog/chris-peck/a ... ugust-1934

"Walking on the road - a bizarre quirk in the law at that time insisted that - where no pavement existed - dismounted cyclists should still wheel their 'vehicles' with the flow of traffic, rather than against, as was - and still is - recommended practice for pedestrians" [my emphasis]

The article has no further detail but the implication is that the law has changed. If this is the case, that change (if we could find it) might explain when cyclists pushing their vehicles became pedestrians.
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by thirdcrank »

The word pedestrian has only started to be used in this context fairly recently. Look at the Crank v Brook case and the then current regulations referred to foot passengers, a passenger being somebody passing along the road. The Highways Act, 1835 has nothing to say about either, but it does prohibit certain types of riding and driving.

I think it's also a mistake to assume that a word used in one bit of legislation will automatically have the same meaning elsewhere. eg Driving, when the Highways Act 1835 was enacted was something you did with animals, be that by herding them along or geeing them up if they were pulling your carriage. Driving under the Road Traffic Acts has been the subject of various decisions which would be irrelevant to a pony and trap. In any case, driving and being a pedestrian are not mutually exclusive -I've a category on my driving licence for pedestrian controlled vehicle ie milk floats and the like.

Although I've never found a law report to confirm it, around thirty years ago, a magistrates' clerk explained to me that "driving on" in the 1835 Act, had been taken to mean "driving along" and not "driving onto" ie banning using the pavement as a route, rather than as a parking spot, or driving across it. (For long enough, pavement parking was dealt with under the Con and Use Regs offence of causing an unnecessary obstruction.)
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Re: Red Lights - Pushing a Cycle and the Law

Post by snibgo »

Adam S quoting Chris Peck wrote:...a bizarre quirk in the law at that time...

This may have been Highway Act 1835 s78:
... or if any person ... shall not keep his waggon, cart, or other carriage, or horses, mules, or other beasts of burthen, on the left or near side of the road, for the purpose of allowing such passage ...

This isn't any "driver" but any "person". Those words are still statute.

I agree with TC that words change their meaning with time, and even between different statutes enacted at the same time. Words are tricky at the best of times, and especially when lawyers and politicians are involved.
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