£30 spot fines - today, Old Market St, Bristol

meanwhile

dang65 wrote:

meanwhile wrote:

This sounds awful. But there is a relatively safe way to ride it, unless I've misunderstood. Wait for a gap in the traffic, pull out, and take the whole lane. Yes, you'll slow down the traffic flow. No, it's not your problem.

Doesn't that describe what this guy was doing though? He got pulled over by the cops and told off.

Your guy was in the right hand lane of two lanes. That's very different to being in the centre of an only, narrow lane.

That said, on the written description (which I may have understood or may be incomplete) I think the police were wrong in the two lane case. I'd ride exactly the same way if I was making a right turn. If I was "told off" I'd ignore it and do the same thing the next day, unless I felt like being really difficult and making a complaint. In the end all that thread means is "Somewhere in the UK there are two stupid policemen." Colour me surprised...

As for the people who say, why not prosecute riders on the pavement only when they do something dangerous? Well, the chances of a policeman ever catching someone do that are zero. Keeping people off the pavement is the only possible enforcement measure.

Something else to consider is that riding on the pavement might not be as safe as some people here think - it irritates some people enough that they might punch you in the nose, aim a fake blow to make you duck (with who knows what consequences for your balance) or just grab you, to give you a talking to. In which case, any violence that occurs can be portrayed as you resisting a citizen's arrest.

But most of all, pedestrians don't expect to be sharing their space with anything moving above walking pace. They won't be looking over their shoulder for you, and they could get seriously hurt if hit by a bike. In which case you'll be legally - and more importantly, morally - responsible.

Clever Pun

dang65 wrote:

"zero tolerance days"? :shock:

Is that how the Law works now?

a turn of phrase... they did a few highly publisised ones in central london and fined a sh!tload of RLJ'ers (even went on that Roadwars program)

In Summary

So... If there is a lot of cops milling around don't do anything silly or you'll probably get fined

It's hardly rocket science.

*Awaits why aren't they catching real criminals comment*

cee

Clever Pun wrote:

So... If there is a lot of cops milling around don't do anything silly or you'll probably get fined

that seems like simple enough logic to me!

dang65

Clever Pun wrote:

So... If there is a lot of cops milling around don't do anything silly or you'll probably get fined

It's hardly rocket science.

Right you are. No cops around, feel free to break the law. Got it. :twisted:

Mithras

dang65 wrote:

Right you are. No cops around, feel free to break the law. Got it. :twisted:

Dang, If you go down that route you have to be SURE there are no cops around......we are sneaky buggers and don't always play fair......We only have to be lucky once!

toslow

I can see by reading every bodies comments that this argument could go round and round to the end time . I personally have used a pavement only to get out the way the occasional lorry bearing down on me as i winch my way up aptly named ' hospital hill' in st austell cornwall. Because the council in there infinite wisdom have placed central islands , narrowing the lane significantly. Now i can see it has had an affect on motorists ' illegal ' speeding up this hill and it does make it safer for those three pedestrians to cross the road i see in the five mile ride home. Yes i know it is illegal to be on the pavement , but i have to ask my self this.Death by motorist or £ 30 fine? , thats a hard one i'll have to back to you on that .

meanwhile

NikB wrote:

Oil reserves aren't remotely low. There is plenty of oil left though it will get harder to get at. The current problem is a lack of refining capacity - specifically diesel refining capacity. There are 2 new large refineries- 1 in India that are due to come online soon which should help. The other reason oil has become so pricey is that it's being invested in as a commodity driving the price further up.

All that should be expected for the next several decades are price rises, not true shortages. As the price of oil rises, it becomes economic to extract from more expensive fields and from oil shale - there are huge reserves in shale and all that is needed is something life the current price to be maintained by extraction to be profitable: the tech is well understood.

spen666

flattythehurdler wrote:

spen666 wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

Spen, answer the question. Is it, as you imply, a criminal offence?

Answer what question?

Is what a criminal offence?


I'm not sure what you are referring to- can you clarify what you are asking about?

Didn't think so. You really need to get your legal facts straight before spouting off on bike fora.

so you are not interested in clarifying what the question is you want answering?

As for getting my legal facts straight- whty do you think I was trying to ascertain what the question is before answering? D'oh

Clever Pun

toslow wrote:

Yes i know it is illegal to be on the pavement , but i have to ask my self this.Death by motorist or £ 30 fine? , thats a hard one i'll have to back to you on that .

You're missing the point, people were being fined for taking a short cut of sorts, escaping from immediate danger stopping letting the lorry etc go by and travelling on again is really quite a different action.

slow clap for dang65

flattythehurdler

spen666 wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

spen666 wrote:

flattythehurdler wrote:

Spen, answer the question. Is it, as you imply, a criminal offence?

Answer what question?

Is what a criminal offence?


I'm not sure what you are referring to- can you clarify what you are asking about?

Didn't think so. You really need to get your legal facts straight before spouting off on bike fora.

so you are not interested in clarifying what the question is you want answering?

As for getting my legal facts straight- whty do you think I was trying to ascertain what the question is before answering? D'oh

Alright then if you're not beong obtuse. You referred to pavement cyclists as "criminals". Is it a criminal offence to cycle on the pavement?

dirk_van_gently

Last week whilst riding along, negotiating around a broken down car, that was in the process of being recovered, a copper was trying to get me to go onto the pavement. I was in no danger on the road, but he obviously did not know the law. As I passed I told him it was illegal for me to ride on the pavement, but he ignored me.
Seems the law is only the law when coppers say so, so it's no great surprise that some folk ignore the law when it suits them.

spen666

flattythehurdler wrote:

Alright then if you're not beong obtuse. You referred to pavement cyclists as "criminals". Is it a criminal offence to cycle on the pavement?

Unless it is a shared use path- it is a criminal offence to ride a bicycle on the pavement.

NB do not confuse criminal offence with a recordable offence


Is some one who commits a criminal offence a criminal- or are they just a criminal if caught and convicted? [discuss]

batch78

Does a tree still make a noise if nobody hears it fall

NorwegianBlue

Spen. I've always been interested in the distinction of a criminal offence.

As I understand it if I rob my local post office, this is a criminal offence and if successfully prosecuted I would get a criminal record.

If I break the speed limit this is also a criminal offence. However I won't get a criminal record.

If I park in a paid parking bay and exceed the length of my ticket this is not a criminal offence.

If I park on a double yellow line this is a criminal offence, unless it's in one of the local authorities where parking has been "decriminalized".

Is all the above true? If it is then I've got it. If not can you clarify. And also what's a "recordable offence"?

meanwhile

NorwegianBlue wrote:

And also what's a "recordable offence"?

That's very simple. Before 1997, a recordable offense was any single or album involving one or more soap stars; after 1997 it was anything the producers of "Crimewatch" took a fancy too.

Mithras

Dirk Van Gently wrote:

Last week whilst riding along, negotiating around a broken down car, that was in the process of being recovered, a copper was trying to get me to go onto the pavement. I was in no danger on the road, but he obviously did not know the law. As I passed I told him it was illegal for me to ride on the pavement, but he ignored me.
Seems the law is only the law when coppers say so, so it's no great surprise that some folk ignore the law when it suits them.

Dirk,
In your opinion yo were in no danger. A vehicle being recovered is a dangerous process. Mainly because other road user think....."Oh, I'm in no danger". Several things can happen, worst case scenario is the recovery winch cable sanpping.
So that copper wasn't telling you to get off the road because he was on a power trip!...And as you know it is illegal to cycle on pavements, what was to stop you getting off and pushing your bike for the 20 meteres required to get around the obstacle and then carrying on with your ride? Might be that 30 seconds of time you would lose on your journey?

spen666

NorwegianBlue wrote:

Spen. I've always been interested in the distinction of a criminal offence.

As I understand it if I rob my local post office, this is a criminal offence and if successfully prosecuted I would get a criminal record.
...

Who says a crime was committed? Without a finding or plea in a court- has there been an offence committed?


EG - body found with gunshot wound- is it a murder or was the killer acting in self defence. Just because a body was found with non self inflicted fatal injuries does not make up the whole offence

When is it an offence?

you can argue this till you are blue in the face- its a bit of a rhetorical question

Its one for the philosophers to debate

dirk_van_gently

Mithras wrote:

Dirk,
In your opinion yo were in no danger. A vehicle being recovered is a dangerous process. Mainly because other road user think....."Oh, I'm in no danger". Several things can happen, worst case scenario is the recovery winch cable sanpping.
So that copper wasn't telling you to get off the road because he was on a power trip!...And as you know it is illegal to cycle on pavements, what was to stop you getting off and pushing your bike for the 20 meters required to get around the obstacle and then carrying on with your ride? Might be that 30 seconds of time you would lose on your journey?

I was 20+mtrs away, and the recovery truck hadn't even arrived, they were just getting ready for it, getting onto the footpath would have put me about 1 mtr further away.

Clever Pun

Dirk Van Gently wrote:

Last week whilst riding along, negotiating around a broken down car, that was in the process of being recovered, a copper was trying to get me to go onto the pavement. I was in no danger on the road, but he obviously did not know the law. As I passed I told him it was illegal for me to ride on the pavement, but he ignored me.
Seems the law is only the law when coppers say so, so it's no great surprise that some folk ignore the law when it suits them.

I suspect that's similar to the highway code saying you can cross the unbroken white lines in the middle of the road if a copper tells you....

as a rule of thumb..if the police tell you to do something, do it

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

A few thoughts:

1) The idea that the police are about enforcing the letter of the law under all circumstances is wrong I think. Doing so is;
a) Unrealistic. They are of course a good deal more legally literate than the rest of us, but with the best will in the world they don't carry around a legal library in their heads. Out ‘on the street’ as it were their knowledge focuses on the circumstances and situations they come across most regularly (hence traffic police know the rules of the road better than others).
b) Inefficient. The police just do not have the resources to chase up every misdemeanor to the full extent of their powers. In any case, to do so fully you’d need a police state – and even then there are always plenty of ‘shortcuts’ and gaps to slip through.
The reality is that the police are there to maintain social order. Law enforcement is a part of this, but only a part - not the purpose.

2) Given that, it is to be expected that different policemen will respond to different situations in different ways. The exact letter of the law will play a major role here, but will not always be the determining factor. Hence some coppers may be sh*ts to you, 'pull rank' if you p*ss them off or generally act in manners that may seem (are) unfair or bullying. Others (most of them probably) will be scrupulously professional and polite however. Or of course they may bend/turn a blind eye to the law if it seems sensible/pragmatic to do so under the circumstances (hence Dirk and his pavement riding instructions from the policeman).

The other side of this coin is that it is to be expected that people will bend or break minor laws when they can or when it seems that nobody is hurt by doing so, or at least if doing so doesn’t break a major social taboo (e.g. lots of us will take a quick shortcut across the pavement on our bikes when noone else is around; but we still wouldn’t hold up a bank, even if we knew we would get away with it). This is not the end of the world and western civilisation will not fall as a consequence.

3) Leading to... finally... a) the absolute pointlessness of arguing the toss with coppers over something like this. Go with the flow and accept that in the real world things are a lot more ambiguous than we often seem to believe. Seriously arguing with policemen is a mugs’ game. b) Perhaps not always take ‘the law is the law’ argument too seriously under all circumstances (unless you actually find yourself a) arguing with a policeman (see above); b) arrested; or c) in court of course!).

Mithras

What Sea Green said.
Spot on!

flattythehurdler

I had always taken a criminal offence as meaning one which left the guilty party with a criminal record. Is this not the case then?

cee

Mithras wrote:

Dang, If you go down that route you have to be SURE there are no cops around......we are sneaky buggers and don't always play fair......We only have to be lucky once!

STOP PRESS - "Police Officers are SNEAKY BUGGERS", says police officer!

R.E the criminal offence discussion.... I was under the impression, that, in Scotland at least, there were criminal offences (such as robbing and what not), and civil offences (such as speeding etc). So although both sets of actions are illegal offences, only the criminal ones result in the achievement :shock: of a criminal record. I did not think that getting 3 points and a £30whatever fine actually gives you a listing in Mithras and Co's big computer (I thought they had to ask the DVLA for that information), but I could be wrong it HAS happened before once 8)

whome

flattythehurdler wrote:

I had always taken a criminal offence as meaning one which left the guilty party with a criminal record. Is this not the case then?

I think that is right, however I also recall a discussion (on here or u.r.c) where someone sounding knowledgeable seemed to be saying that some/most? driving offenses are a criminal offence - however the explanation had too many exceptions/negatives to be sure I had understood correctly.

Or is that not the issue here :?

NorwegianBlue

flattythehurdler wrote:

I had always taken a criminal offence as meaning one which left the guilty party with a criminal record. Is this not the case then?

We are going through a process of "decriminalization" of parking at work at the moment. From this I am assuming that the sort of parking offence that gets you a ticket from a police employed warden (yellow hat) is a criminal issue, but the ones that get you a ticket from a local authority employed warden are not.

I think that civil law is when a person or organization sues another person or organization.

Which leaves me with a grey area: What exactly do you call something like the parking ticket you get when you outstay your welcome on a pay and display ticket? I mean appart from a b****rd.