The Ride to Roam theory of top-down policing
You may not be aware of it, but the police now have the power to impose a £20 fine on people over the age of 16 who ride on pavements.
Wow, there's nothing like starting at the top of the tree, is there?
Personally, I don't tend to ride on pavements - being moderately fit, I can keep pace with city centre traffic speeds anyway and traffic volumes near my home are fairly low. Besides, I'd rather be riding in the dirt than on the tarmac.
However, I do know a lot of people do use pavements, simply for their own personal survival - a 40mph dual carriageway is no place to be riding at 10mph with a baby seat (or even without).
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of pavement riding, at Ride to Roam we feel it is grossly unfair to punish such a minor offence so severely when so many major league criminals get away scot-free.
You all know who we mean, you've all seen them - That's right, we're talking about Pedestrians Who Start To Cross When The Green Man Is Flashing. Worse still, some Mafia- type bosses have been seen crossing the road while the red man was showing or even - and we hesitate to report such a dastardly, despicable crime in a family viewing area - where there isn't even a crossing!
(*gasp!*)
Such crimes against humanity regularly go completely unpunished, with police officers frequently turning a completely blind eye to such horrendous, stomach- turning actions.
In all seriousness for a second though (or as serious as we get here), think about some of your local cycle paths (if you're lucky enough to have been granted any). If they're anything like ours, many of them actually share pavement space. This is fine and as it should be, as cyclists and pedestrians are far more "evenly matched" should a collision occur than, for example, a bike and a car - even a small one.
So what happens at the end of such a cycle path, where it
runs out 50 yards before the turn- off to the side road you need? Do you pile back into
the path of the oncoming bus and risk your life (albeit briefly) or do you decide that,
arses to it, you're going to ride up 50 yards of empty pavement?
Could cost you twenty smackers!
Come to that, what happens when you're riding along the
cycle path and you find that, as happens 9 times out of 10, all the pedestrians are on
what is officially the "cycle" part of the track (this normally happens when the
cycle section is furthest from the kerb and it's easy to understand why)? Well, you could
wait for them to move over, or you could ride around them and save everyone a lot of time
and hassle. Except that by riding around them, you are now on a pavement not a cycle path.
That'll be twenty quid please!
Thirdly, what if you're riding along a road with an
on-street light railway (tramway, to you and me)? OK, it's somewhat location specific at
the moment (Blackpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Croydon), but narrow streets and busses
could cause a similar conflict. Suppose you're on such a street and are aware you are
holding up a tram (or bus). The polite thing to do is pull over to let it past, which you
do by resorting to - that's right - the pavement.
Twenty notes? I think perhaps so!
If you don't pull over, you could be delaying anything up to 150 passengers. It may only be by a minute or so, but given today's society is fairly obsessed with money and the concept of putting a price on anything that moves, stays still or ticks, it's not difficult to see the costs involved. If time is money and each of those passengers earns £8 per hour, a one minute delay can be said to equate to £20 in lost time (not counting people in following cars and busses or those waiting for the tram further along the line). Think they'll pay your fine?
As you can see, we believe this law is a complete, total and utter farce (or is that "f '-arse"? - Ed.) and will remain so until similar fines are introduced for pedestrians walking on cycle paths, running red men, etc. (Or, for preference, enough cycle routes and traffic calming and removal measures are put in place to ensure that roads are actually safe for all people, not just those surrounded by a ton or more of steel.)
Finally, what do you think will happen to all those 20 pound fines that our over-stretched police force will have so much spare time to impose on people who're simply trying to stay alive? Will the revenue be put towards new cycle paths? Or even simply more general road safety schemes?
Yeah right, and my name's Donald Johann Vanden-Duck. Have you seen Porky, my pet pig? He was here on my cloud a moment ago. I think he must have flown off with the cuckoos...