Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

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thirdcrank
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by thirdcrank »

gaz wrote:Well I know you've emphasised the need to issue a NIP within 14 days of an alleged driving offence and also added that failure to issue a NIP can be used by the defence as a tactic to get a charge dismissed. So I expect a court would be quite likely to see a charge for wanton and furious driving as an abuse of process, if it were directed at the driver of a mechanically propelled vehicle.

Right area, but not what I was getting at.

This charge could never be used to get round the need for an NIP since it can only apply when there has been an "accident" within the meaning of that part of the Road Traffic Offenders Act which creates the requirement to serve an NIP, and provides an exception when there has been one.

Mistik-Ka

Whatever the grammar, in English law a mechanically propelled vehicle is what used to be termed a "motor vehicle" before the term was dropped because it had acquired too much baggage in the form of case law, restricting its meaning. Prior to that "mechanically propelled vehicle" was used in the vehicle licensing regulations. A pedal cycle is both a vehicle and a carriage. That bit of the advice is prompted by the fact that although there are offences of careless, inconsiderate and dangerous cycling which are equivalent to the motoring versions, there is no offence of causing death/ serious injury by cycling.

The main thing here about furious driving was that it was intended to deal with people who intentionally whipped-up their horses to go at speed, rather than people whose horse bolted.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Does a bicycle "bolt" downhill?
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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gaz
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by gaz »

Well mine don't "bolt" uphill which only leaves one direction for them to "bolt" in. :wink:
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gaz
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by gaz »

thirdcrank wrote:This charge could never be used to get round the need for an NIP since it can only apply when there has been an "accident" within the meaning of that part of the Road Traffic Offenders Act which creates the requirement to serve an NIP, and provides an exception when there has been one.

Good spot.
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Bicycler
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by Bicycler »

TC,

I think the "furious cycling" offences envisaged by previous posters were those not requiring another party to have been injured:
Nationally: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Wil ... section/78
if any person riding any horse or beast, or driving any sort of carriage, shall ride or drive the same furiously so as to endanger the life or limb of any passenger

Outside London http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vic ... section/28
Every person who rides or drives furiously any horse or carriage, or drives furiously any cattle:

In London: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vic ... section/54
Every person who shall ride or drive furiously, or so as to endanger the life or limb of any person, or to the common danger of the passengers in any thoroughfare:


Applying only to public roads, I don't think any of those offences is applicable to the park road. Whereas, If I have understood your earlier posts on the subject, the Offences Against the Person Act offence applies everywhere so could be used if a cyclist was to harm a pedestrian within the park.
thirdcrank
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by thirdcrank »

When I linked to the CPS stuff, I was simply highlighting what looks to me like a gaffe by somebody with an academic approach to a practical matter.

As for those various bits and pieces of Victorian legislation, we've been there before. If somebody with the time and energy trawls the depths of the ancient parts of the forum, I think the first reference to furious cycling was a link to one of those cut-and-paste articles where somebody scoffed at the suggestion that furious cycling was not an offence, which is obviously incorrect. OTOH, I'll suggest that for all practical purposes, there's nothing in all that furious driving Victorian stuff - with the possible exception of the Offences Against the Person offence - which isn't adequately covered by modern road traffic legislation.

I've almost certainly posted before that 1861 was a milestone year for Victorian legislators, but the Offences Against the Person Act is the only surviving bit of major legislation. It's been tinkered with, eg the changes to the offence of common assault, but it's surely long overdue for the complete overhaul which happened when the Larceny Act and Malicious Damage Act were replaced by the Theft Act and Criminal Damage Act. When that occurs, I wouldn't expect causing injury by furious driving to be retained.

I find it strange that even among cyclists, there's sometimes a wish to see more strict enforcement of cycling than is applied to the driving of motor vehicles. Why else would anybody drag up these anachronisms in discussions about road safety? If anybody wants an example of the mess that can be caused by reviving legislation intended for a bygone age, they need look no further than the current attempts to deal with pavement cycling using the Highways Act 1835.
LollyKat
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by LollyKat »

Every person who ... drives furiously any cattle:


I love this one -- Gee-Haw ! Presumably it doesn't apply to a cowherd who is furious because the cattle won't move! :lol:
Bicycler
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by Bicycler »

thirdcrank wrote:I find it strange that even among cyclists, there's sometimes a wish to see more strict enforcement of cycling than is applied to the driving of motor vehicles. Why else would anybody drag up these anachronisms in discussions about road safety?

In my own case it was just an interest in the archaic legislation. I have no desire to see it enforced. I agree with your view of how priorities ought to be, particularly what you wrote about how policing residential 20mph zones should be a much bigger priority. I don't know if anybody else has mentioned but the Park has its own separate police so I guess they only have a limited number of rules to enforce. They may genuinely not have anything more serious to deal with.

I won't attribute any ulterior motives to anybody else, looking back it just seems that somebody repeated the old "they can't touch you for speeding but they can do you for furious cycling" line.

If anybody wants an example of the mess that can be caused by reviving legislation intended for a bygone age, they need look no further than the current attempts to deal with pavement cycling using the Highways Act 1835.

Does it really generate many difficulties with regard to enforcing pavement cycling? If all the archaic language were replaced by a straightforward pavement cycling offence would it actually make any difference to enforcement?

Thirdcrank wrote:I've almost certainly posted before that 1861 was a milestone year for Victorian legislators, but the Offences Against the Person Act is the only surviving bit of major legislation. It's been tinkered with, eg the changes to the offence of common assault, but it's surely long overdue for the complete overhaul which happened when the Larceny Act and Malicious Damage Act were replaced by the Theft Act and Criminal Damage Act. When that occurs, I wouldn't expect causing injury by furious driving to be retained.

But presumably we would need some equivalent offence to cover the few cases where the standard motoring offences and cycling offences do not apply (off road etc.)

Interestingly, of the archaic legislation I linked above, the Town Police Clauses and Metropolitan Police Acts are substantially as enacted and in need of revision but the same does not apply to the Highways Act 1835 of which only a few sections have not been repealed by subsequent Highways Acts or other legislation. That suggests that the remaining sections (including furious riding/driving) were still viewed as necessary at the time of the most recent Highways Act (1980). Maybe the offences created in the subsequent Road Traffic Acts have finally made it superfluous?
pwa
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by pwa »

I raised the "furious cycling" charge simply in reply to a technical point. It may not even apply in the park. The point I was making was that, in the past, cyclists have been charged with "furious cycling" when deemed to have been going too fast. So being fined for cycling too fast is not new. That was my only point.
thirdcrank
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by thirdcrank »

The main point I would make about cycling on a footpath - and I've lost count of the times I've posted this - is that everybody knows it's an offence, when it ain't necessarily so.

When Blunkett created the PSCO system, he needed something easy and popular for them to enforce, taking-candy-from-a-baby style. Only the most minimal training needed. :roll: No matter that quite a lot of cycling on both footways and footpaths is a reaction to the deteriorating traffic conditions, ironically caused largely by a collapse in the enforcement of provisions relating to bad driving. This is all aggravated by shoddy shared-use farcilities where within the space of a few yards, cyclists may be expected to use a stretch of footway and then prohibited from using it reinforced by CYCLISTS DISMOUNT signs. If that's not a mess .... Meanwhile, politicians of just about every stripe pay lip service to the promotion of cycling.

It's not easy to mount a campaign against something like this when everybody knows it's an offence. The best we seem to have had is repeated misrepresentation of a junior transport minister's weasel words.
Bicycler
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by Bicycler »

I agree but I see that as a problem of enforcement priorities rather than the legislation, unless the suggestion is that pavement cycling ought to be legalised which is not going to happen any time soon. If the 1835 offence is removed it will be replaced by a modern version of the same explicitly prohibiting pavement cycling. The best we can hope for is more worthwhile instructions to police that they ought not to enforce the law where cyclists are behaving responsibly. Also, more and better facilities with less of the "CYCLISTS DISMOUNT" nonsense.

The 1835 Act's use of the word footpath could potentially cause confusion now but I suspect that the common misunderstanding that it is illegal to cycle on all footpaths is more down to a general misunderstanding that cyclists not having a right to cycle along a path is the same as cyclists being prohibited from cycling along it. Long term use of the word pavement in the Highway Code has done nothing to dispel this notion and I can't imagine a more modern-worded pavement cycling law would either.
pwa
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by pwa »

I've always understood cycling on the pavement (footway) to be illegal, and so did the police constable who told me off for cycling on a pavement in the mid 1970s (I was about 13). And like most people I have always thought an exception should be made for young children. I think a clearer rewriting of the law is overdue.

But I would hate to see cycling allowed on most pavements. When I'm walking I want to be able to walk without worrying about people cycling around me. Cyclists and pedestrians do not mix well. When I cycle I prefer not to be near pedestrians, and when I walk I prefer to be away from cyclists. I know shared use paths combine the two, but I cannot imagine the general public accepting cycling on all footpaths. It's not going to happen.

As for the speeding issue, I stick to the rules. I try to stick to the rules when I drive a car, and I do the same when I cycle. There are two kind of road user: those who obey the rules of the road and those who don't.
Psamathe
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Re: CPS Bloomer.

Post by Psamathe »

thirdcrank wrote:... I found this from the CPS...
Road Traffic Offences - Guidance on Charging Offences arising from Driving Incidents

Wanton and Furious Driving

The offence of wanton and furious driving under section 35 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 is committed when bodily harm (i.e. injury) is caused to any person as a result of the manner of driving of a suspect and is not limited to motor vehicles but covers any kind of vehicle or carriage including bicycles....

Which I interpret as, if nobody was injured then there cannot have been an offence of "Wanton and Furious Driving".

Have I missed something ?

Ian
Bicycler
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by Bicycler »

Nope, I mentioned that above. The Offences Against the Person Act offence of furious driving only applies where somebody is injured. As I also mentioned above, there are other "furious cycling" offences but it's arguable whether any apply to the park road (not being a public highway).
thirdcrank
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Re: Didn't know cyclists could be fined for speeding!

Post by thirdcrank »

I'm losing the will to live. Nothing is going to change anytime soon because there's no political will. Show me a politician who pledges sorry, aspires to promote cycling and with a few honourable exceptions I'll show you a humbug.

I'm not suggesting for a second that cyclists should be riding on pavements, but let's remember - and again it's something I've posted before - that Blunkett was a senior member of a government pledged to be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Now, it seems to me that this "crime" is largely caused by deteriorating traffic conditions. Let's also remember that any rider who exercises their right to ignore farcilities is likely to be the target of amateur enforcement by enraged drivers. The issue of pavement parking is totally off the agenda.

It's impossible to know to what extent publicised cases eg toddler threatened with confiscation of their bike, represent anything wider, but we have had several reports on here of riders being advised or given a ticket for riding across a footway to gain access to something beyond it. It seems that in some places, PCSO's lurk in such places.

Talking about discretion here is misplaced, IMO, because it was police using their discretion ie ignoring pavement cycling, which led to the wheeze of authorising PCSO's to enforce it. ("Taking candy" etc.) I've no doubt that Blunkett saw this as the thin end of a wedge which would eventually see PCSO's doing a whole lot more: the lower tier of two-tier policing, in fact. Public spending cuts have prevented that, largely because in the short term it's much easier to make PCSO's redundant that it is with police officers. There are changes on the way, but in the meantime, one of the few ways that PCSO's can fight to stay is by issuing tickets for pavement cycling.
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others have posted while I was preparing this.

psamathe

You have missed something, which is covered in what bicycler says. There are various bits of Victorian legislation, obviously aimed at conditions which existed in those far off days when neither the pedal cycle nor the motor vehicle had been invented. eg s 28 of the Town Police Clauses Act deals with all manner of anti-social behaviour including beating carpets (except doormats before 8am) allowing servants to stand on the window sills of upper stories, placing plant pots ditto, ringing doorbells and running away, to the danger, annoyance or obstruction of passengers. Canteen humour during training on this quint insight into the nineteenth century is that another of the s28 offences is indecent exposure: see obstruction above. Furiously driving a carriage must have been a favourite pastime of some Victorian tearaways and it's preserved in those bits of legislation.

It's true that if legislation has not been repealed it's still in force.

And while I've been posting this additional bit bicycler has got in before me.
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