Great Western Coffee Shop

Cycle lanes means cycle lanes, roads means roads. Obvious.

Probably seen all those cyclists on the pavements.....

A long long time ago when I was learning to ride a bike I took part in a training programe which was called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_Proficiency_Test
Which I learn has been scraped
Apart from bike control the instructors spent most of the time ramming home the fact that people who ride bikes are Very Soft and Easy to Kill when they get hit by a road vehicle
Perhaps it's time that a lot of bike riders remembered this fact ?.

I try very hard to remember that when I encounter a cyclist while driving a car.

Sadly not many cyclists (most of whom, of course, will also drive cars) care to remember this when cycling on a road also occupied by cars, lorries etc. The overall standards of driving and riding on our roads is pretty abysmal in terms of what it is possible to achieve with regards to observation, anticipation, vehicle handling (including push bikes) and consideration for other road users. Cyclists like to prefer the indignant self-righteous approach, but they're just as bad as any other road users and it's not really going to help you once you're converted to a nasty stain under a 44t HGV...

We have all this lot passing our place ... sharing a main roadway and a pavement:
* Pederstrians
* Cyclists
* Mobility scooterists
* Motor Cyclists
* Equestrians
* Private Cars and their drivers
* Taxis and their drivers
* Vans and their drivers
* Public service passenger vehicles and their drivers
* Private coaches and their drivers
* Lorries and their drivers
and there seems to be an unwritten rule that the bigger and stronger your mode of trasport, the more right you have to bully other road users ... until you reach an honourable number of real "gentlemen" (be they male or female ones) amongst professional drivers. And while anyone in my list after the pedestrian is going to be less than professional in how they behave, you're going to have issues about sharing and the stronger bullying the weaker.

Cycling UK tweeted this image of an extract from the Local Government Act 1888 to demonstrate that cycles are carriages within the meaning of the law and therefore uses of the carriageway, or to put it another way they are legally road users.

Also is why they aren't permitted on footpaths.

If cyclists wish to be treated the same as other road users then they should be responsible enough to do what is compulsory for all other road users and take out insurance.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but in and around Exeter you are much more likely to see a variety of motor vehicles on the pavements. Apparently it is much cheaper and/or more convenient that using a properly designated parking area.

It's an Exeter thing, they're not particularly bright around there  ;)

I don't think horse riders are required to take out third party insurance either, just motor vehicles. Plenty car owners don't bother to invest insurance which bothers me much more!

It's a national thing. When my nephew was still using a pushchair I could guarantee that on every day I was looking after him there would be at least one instance where our path was hindered or blocked by vehicles parked on pavements. I'd make a point of 'accidentally' walking into wing mirrors on such occasions. If they broke then good.  >:(

I'm re-entering the world of motoring at the moment (perhaps steer clear of South Somerset while I'm on the L plates!). I'm confident the 25 odd years of being a pedestrian, cyclist and public transport user has instilled in me a tolerance of all road users. Excepting those that park like a **** though. ;)

Where I live there can be a difficulty finding on-street parking space. Just yesterday I had a friend delivering my car and I ensured she did not park it on the pavement. It did mean the car was further from the front door, but if that means the elderly, disabled, or those with pushchairs are not hindered, then so be it.

I often hear the "cyclists should have compulsory insurance" argument but I have never heard an argument as to why.  Having insurance doesn't make anyone any more responsible or improve the safety of anyone on its own. 

The reason that motor vehicles must have third party insurance is because they cause a significant amount of damage to third parties (both people and property) and that the monetary compensation recoverable under the law for that damage is very often much more than the driver is in a position to pay.   Without compulsory motor insurance, a significant number of people would be harmed and would receive no compensation of that harm and a significant number of drivers would be ruined by bankruptcy after being sued by their victims.

Surely the amount of damage caused to third parties by cyclists, or pedestrians or horse riders (or dogs, or lawnmowers or surfboarders or kite flyers or football players or whatever other group of people) whilst not zero is several orders of magnitude less than the damage caused by motor vehicle drivers, both in the number of incidents resulting in damage significant enough for legal recovery to be worthwhile and the quantum of damage (ie the typical damage caused by a public footballer might be a broken window or by a cyclist a broken arm damages awarded for that sort of damage might well be recoverable without bankrupting the liable party, whereas in a motor vehicle it is quite easy to cause multiple deaths and/or demolish a building and/or write off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of other motor vehicles)

Just taking damage to signposts and lampposts as an example, local authorities suffer millions of pounds worth of damage to those assets per year and compulsory insurance allows the recovery of a great deal of it.  Do you really think that horse riders and cyclists are demolishing millions of pounds worth of lampposts every year and that the absence of insurance of those people is meaning that the council tax payer has to pick up the tab?  Is Network Rail being frustrated at its lack of ability to recover compensation for all their bridges damaged by cyclists crashing into them?   

You could say that everyone should have compulsory insurance for liability of any sort to third parties. But the law has only made it compulsory for certain groups (ie motorists, employers to employee etc).  To change the law to include cyclists in that group I think you ought to have to demonstrate that there is a significant evil which the law needs to remedy. 

Indeed - so have you seen the usual dent left in a car when a cyclist being unobservant, collides with one?
Also, they collect pedestrians reasonably often, and other cyclists not quite as often - why shouldn't they also be entitled to claim easier compensation? So third-party insurance definitely IMHO.


There is a good argument for this, where damage/injuries can be quite possible. Dangerous dogs for example.
Also those partaking of what insurers consider dangerous sports just so the NHS can claim any costs against them being hospitalised - but that is another discussion. Why should our taxes be spent putting these oafs back together, and sometimes if they become disabled, taxes be spent on them for the rest of their lives.

Why? Because they've paid for health care and welfare benefits in the event of injury or disability. National Insurance, Income Tax, in fact almost any taxation. So it's their taxes paying for treatment, not yours. You want to start excluding people from treatment for what you consider dangerous activities? I believe you smoke ChrisB, or did. Very dangerous activity is that. I take it you have a separate insurance policy to cover you in the event of smoking related illness.

As for branding these people 'oafs' for having a hobby. Really? 

NI covers general run of the mill illnesses - these sports didn't exist when the NHS was invented, so could be argued that these sports aren't included. Maybe a higher rate before being covered? (and yes, although smoking was taking placve at the time the NHS was invented and thus could be argued that the NHS was covering it at inception), I would have no problem with paying higher NI if that was generally accepted.

I'm afraid that your entire pretext here is (intentionally or unintentionally) rather uninformed and straw man. British Cycling (the UK governing body) offers and recommends insurance covering third party liability, and contact sports such as football and rugby do the same via their own governing bodies.............as a rugby club, my own organisation would not be permitted to participate in competitions without it.

The mere fact that the cost of motor vehicle claims is of a larger order of magnitude is hardly a reason for others not to have it......very few rugby injuries cause sufficient damage to make a claim, but those that do are generally of a catastrophic nature, costing millions of £, a similar scenario perhaps to a cyclist causing an accident/injury to an individual leaving them paralysed - if that cyclist is uninsured, who picks up the bill?

I'm not sure what point you are seeking to make by citing lawnmower injuries.

Insurance mitigates risk, it doesn't seek to remove it or apportion blame, nor is it about remedying "evils". Since cycling (particularly on the highway) is to a greater or lesser extent a risky activity, considerably more so than the other sports I mentioned, it makes sense to provide protection against a risk to all those concerned.

No insurance is only required for 'motor vehicles' other 'carriages' (= road users (see post below for definition)) do not require insurance.


AIUI It is not illegal to park on the footway (correct legal definition for that part of a highway that is used only by pedestrians). It is however illegal to drive on the footway.  So provided you can demonstrate that you lifted your car onto the footway without driving on it. That is perfectly legal!

Do they have parking cranes on hand in Exeter?

Does that means it's illegal to drive across the footway onto a driveway?  Could be a lot of people in trouble?

Case precedent (where the Highways Act 1835 section 72 has been cited) has exempted crossing a footway to access property.

It is illegal in Greater London under the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974:


Outside London councils can do something to ban it, but extending the blanket ban is now under consideration by the Government. There's a House of Commons Library Briefing Paper on this (Number SN01170, 10 February 2016 "Pavement and on-street parking in England" (http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01170/SN01170.pdf)), and it's by Louise Butcher - you may be familiar with her papers on railway topics.

Here is one paragraph:

I think that says that the 2004 act can't ban pavement parking, only a one-off local private act can do that.

The paper says the Road Traffic Act 1974 contained a provision for a total ban, but the regulations for it were never implemented. It also says the Road Traffic Act 1988, which replaced the 1974 act, copied the provision for a ban, but it has now been repealed by the Road Traffic Act 1991. Clever, huh?

The other act cited here and elsewhere is the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, via a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) made under it. However, that act explicitly says it covers the use of roads and nowhere else, which may not prevent its use but may preclude a true blanket ban.

I have read of cases where the kerb is not dropped & property owners have created themselves a driveway/parking area in their front garden & failed to apply to the council to drop the kerb. Driving over the fiitway then does give rise to council enforcement/action

There is actually a local byelaw in Exeter prohibiting parking on pavements, with the exception of a handful of narrow residential streets (mine being one of them), where it is actually illegal to park 'wholely on the carriageway' - but I don't believe the council has the willingness/manpower/money to police this byelaw.

Why are these things so ridiculously complicated?

Exeter does have its own local act - it's the  Exeter City Council Act 1987 (c. xi), and section 30(1) covers "prohibition of parking vehicles on verges, central reservations and footways". Local acts, like most other acts and statutory instruments (but not private acts) are on legislation.gov.uk; this one isn't, for no obvious reason.

Devon County Council (DCC) is the civil enforcement authority for on-street parking restrictions within Devon, except for Torbay and Plymouth. This power is conveyed by a Statutory Instrument introduced by Government under the Traffic Management Act 2004. But the transfer of powers under the act covered the standard offences defined in general acts, not this one. So enforcement is still a matter for the police.

After much pestering, DfT finally came up with the The Traffic Management Act 2004 (Amendment of Schedule 7) (City of Exeter) Regulations 2012 - a very short SI indeed. So since then this ban is decriminalised and enforced like other parking offences.

AIUI there are no signs to tell visitors (or locals) about this general ban.

Crossing the pavement to park is mostly a planning matter, but obviously that only really affects new access or new building. Planning includes highways requirements like visibility splays and avoiding conflicts with junctions, bus stops, and the like. It also applies stricter rules on classified roads: A- and B-roads, recognisable by their numbers, and C-roads which do exist but are hard to detect. It's on classified roads that being able to turn on-site can be required. But permission is a matter of assessment, so I'm sure different authorities will use this discretion differently.

London is again different. And here the curse of legal obscurity descends again.

There is a series of acts called the London Local Authorities Act 1990 and so on to the London Local Authorities Act 2012. After 1990 they appeared in 1990 (No. 2 act), 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2007. But Richmond (aka LBRuT), for example, cites the act in its advice document as the 8th London Local Authorities Act. That's the 2004 one, obviously, and I know the 9th was in 2007. But no - it's actually in the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003. Oh well.

As a result, in London you can get an order to desist from using a pavement crossing even if it's been in use for years. They can also give tickets for parking in front of a dropped kerb, but only if the resident complains! And there's no signs about any of this for out-of-town visitors.

There are signs on the edge of the city boundary, on selected roads and not particularly easy to see! So it is hardly surprising that folks new to the area do not know about it..........

(http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww255/PhilWakely/Untitled3_zpso8iqgbh7.jpg)

British Cycling is (to quote their website) "the internationally recognised governing body of cycle sport in the UK". Most cycling is not cycle sport. British Cycling is no more the governing body for everyday cycling than the FIA is the governing body for driving to the supermarket.

......And the insurance it recommends & offers is for "daily cycling"

://www.britishcycling.org.uk/thirdpartyliability


But no worries Richard , I'm sure you know best  ;)

Hmmm - a warden that patrols close to our office in the City always gives a ticket to cars parked on our closest dropped curbs - no residents for miles, it's all office blocks!

Yes, it does offer that as one of its products. But so does the ETA and I don't think anyone would claim they were the governing body for utility cycling.

Generally, Cycling UK (formerly CTC), local cycle advocacy groups (grouped in Cyclenation), and Sustrans are recognised as representative or advisory bodies for utility cycling. I have been to countless meetings discussing cycling with both national bodies such as the Canal & River Trust, and local statutory bodies such as Oxfordshire County Council or the Cotswold AONB, and at none of these events has British Cycling been represented or shown any interest in sending a representative.

(Disclaimer: I'm a volunteer for Sustrans.)

I was only giving you the (very) short version! That clause reads:

So in non-residential cases section (3) can lead to an immediate PCN. The section applies to the road next to a "dropped footway", and the stuff about section 6 links this to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 and the PCN rules.

And now ... another layer of confusion. Those extra parking offences in London only have effect if the council applies for an order to set up a Special Enforcement Area . So that's something else you need to know about.

Councils anywhere in England that have gone for civil enforcement can, it seems opt to have a Special Enforcement Area too. That includes these extra parking offences (but not, I presume, the direct control of access across the pavement). I wonder how many have done that.

But if you look at the relevant act (the Traffic Management Act 2004) in "SCHEDULE 7 Road traffic contraventions subject to civil enforcement", it only lists dropped kerbs for London, Exeter, and Essex! I can't see a missing amendment, so that leaves me a bit baffled. So does the list of councils that can apply for one of these SEAs (in Schedule 10):

Doesn't that leave out unitary authorities?

Where a council gets one of these SEAs, they still have to decide whether to enforce or not. I can see the attraction of a uniform nationwide ban - at least we'd have a chance of knowing what the rules are!

Thanks for the background and the declaration of interest!  :)

I'm not overly precious about splitting hairs on lines of demarcation or who sells it to me, for me it's more important that people are responsible enough to ensure that they are adequately insured to cover every eventuality, or at least as many as possible. I'm a keen cyclist and I've had 3rd party insurance for some time.

Of course there will be people who will beat their chests, take positions and insist that they're not going to/don't need to, probably the same ones who act irresponsibly and give the rest of us a bad name......they may find themselves having to foot a very large bill one of these days.

Presumably, they would then feel like a fat billed beaty bust?  :P

I don't get your logic.  You seem to be in agreement with me that the total damage caused by cyclists is much less than that caused by motor vehicles.  But then you are saying that that difference in damage is can't be used to justify treating cyclists and motor vehicles differently.  And yet you use a supposed difference the scale of damage between cycling and rugby to justify treating them differently.

 

I'm sorry but you're just being deliberately oblique/disingenuous for the sake of it now.

For clarity, my point is this - yes motor vehicles do cause much more damage than cyclists, but that does not mean that cyclists never cause any damage/injury at all, far from it. My point in referring to rugby was that (thankfully) serious injuries are very rare, however insurance is there for when it does happen, and that is the parallel I was drawing with cyclists.

The purpose of insurance is not to increase individual's responsibility, it's to cover risk.

If the day ever comes when a cyclist causes you injury or damage (and I sincerely hope that it doesn't), I'm sure you will be understanding if they are unable to adequately compensate you. £35 a year seems a small price to cover against this eventuality.

I'm sorry if these seems a little brusque however the aura of self righteousness surrounding a lot of (fellow) cyclists gets very tiresome.

My last word on the subject. Have a good day.

Many, many under 16s use bicycles. How do they go about getting third party insurance?

My 10 year old nephew recently had a coming together with another cyclist. Clothes and bicycles were damaged. My nephew was probably at fault.

I know you've rather huffily dropped the mic TaplowGreen, but how does a 10 year old go about insuring himself against future incidents?

Parents policy with 'named cyclists'? What if Mummy and Daddy don't cycle? Can a child be expected to understand and agree to an insurance policy with all its legalese?

Compulsory insurance for cyclists is a non starter. You want it for yourself as an adult? Fine, your prerogative. Just don't force it on those of us who think it unnecessary.

What next? Pedestrians some times accidentally injure other pedestrians. Public liability insurance for everyone who dares step outside?

TaplowGreen.  Just for info.  I am not a cyclist.  I have an (uninsured!) bike in my shed.  It has a puncture and been unridable since 2005.  Self righteous cyclists annoy me too.  

Yes, agreeing with BNM, for me it's a great idea in theory, but in practice rather more difficult to implement sensibly.  I ride over 1000 miles a year so count myself as a reasonably regular cyclist and I must admit I'd never even thought about insurance.  I don't consider it a stance of self-righteousness on my part, just that it never entered my head.  I will certainly now consider it.

However, are you seriously expecting Ethel, who gets her bike out once a week to cycle a quarter mile to the shop in the village, to have to join British Cycling and spend nearly £40 a year? Or the same for somebody who is living on the breadline, can't afford a car or bus fees and has a battered old bike they sometimes use, when it's not stuck in the shed with a puncture, to cycle to work because it saves them ten minutes on walking?

By all means encourage more regular and serious cyclists to join British Cycling (who I'm sure do pretty well financially out of providing this cover as part of their membership), but demands of making it compulsory are, for me, fanciful in the extreme.

As it's you Bignosemac I will pick up the mic  ;)

I'll just ask you one question - if you were out on your pushbike, cycling along and were perhaps momentarily distracted by ecstatic thoughts of all we have to look forward to once GWR have finished "Building a Greater West", and in your euphoria failed to see someone using a pedestrian crossing, mowed them down causing serious injuries, how would you finance the consequent claim for compensation?

Similarly, if you were the victim and the perpetrator was uninsured and unable to compensate you, how would you feel?

As for your points re: children, parents can be held responsible for their child's negligence if they aren't overseeing them properly.

As for pedestrians, not really road users are they?

If one would consider 10 year old cyclists able to cause damage that their parents are unable to cover, then your suggestion above is the way to go. Anyone can insure, whether or not they take part in whatever is insured, and you know that.

To my mind it's a matter of the wider social good.

In a risk-averse world then there is some logic in everyone having insurance against everything. Cyclists who cycle recklessly, pedestrians who walk out into traffic (or let their dog do so), home-owners with parrots who might shout offensive words at passers-by causing trauma, and so on.

But there are costs as well as benefits: not just the financial cost of administering all this, but the wider cost of the inevitable reduction in cycling that it would bring (just as Australia saw cycling numbers drop in the 1990s when a compulsory helmet law was introduced). And that would mean more congestion, more pollution, more motor vehicle accidents, more land set aside for car parking.

Personally I believe a lot of the solution is to 'normalise' cycling by providing safe, segregated cycling infrastructure that anyone can use, just as the Dutch and Danish do, and just as we're starting to see in London. When it's possible and normal to cycle safely across town without having to behave assertively, when there's peer pressure from everyday cyclists to call out the bad behaviour of the Lycra-clad minority, and when cyclists are a frequent enough sight around town that motorists know to look out for them and thereby fewer conflicts arise, I think the insurance issue will become largely irrelevant.

Anyway, on a cheerful note, this bike shop strikes the right tone in its response to the SoS for Transport: https://twitter.com/RKWinvisibleman/status/820946734943764480

Fine, so insurance until your utopia for cyclists comes about?

If someone was being seriously injured by cyclists and cast aside uncompensated every hour of every single  day you would have a very strong argument for compulsory insurance.  But that doesn't happen.  Reality is plenty of minor injuries and very occasionally a cyclist-caused tragedy.

Contrast that with motor vehicles and you are looking at dozens of life changing injuries and 7 deaths caused every single day.   

The scale of the damage caused by motor vehicles is completely and utterly out of proportion to the damage caused by cyclists.

We could have a society where everyone is insured for absolutely every risk (and whilst I wouldn't be in favour of that, I can certainly see that there are good arguments in support of going in that direction), but until we do it is not illogical to demand insurance against the major risks and not the minor ones.

You seem to be arguing with yourself. No-one is challenging the greater and more regular threat caused by cars, and no-one is suggesting that everyone is insured for every single risk.

Your suggestion that cycling represents a minor risk is entirely your subjective opinion. In relative terms it is obviously smaller than the risks from cars but that does not make it minor per se. As someone who on a daily basis witnesses the behaviour of cyclists in Central London and has witnessed pedestrians mown down I would absolutely challenge it.

I am asking BNM a specific question based on his own comments, I am sure he will respond accordingly when he has time.

If I was subject to serious injury by a cyclist I would not be concerned if they had third party insurance. There are other routes to compensation.

A civil claim is one. Another, if the cyclist is prosecuted for a criminal offence, is a claim for compensation following their conviction. If the person prosecuted or taken to civil court is of limited means then so be it. That's life.

The chances are miniscule though of me being seriously injured by a cyclist.

If there's voluntary insurance held by the cyclist then that's a bonus as an additional avenue to compensation.

So. Compulsory cyclist insurance is a "no" from me, no matter what may arise from an incident involving myself and a negligent cyclist.

I found this FOI response (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/uk_accident_statistics_for_pedes):

Deaths (Persons)
Year	(a) Pedestrian hit by	(b) Pedestrian hit by
	pedal cycle	car, pick-up or truck
2006	3	233
2007	6	267
2008	3	247
2009	0	141
2010	2	123

These figures are for the whole of the UK. The ONS are unable to distinguish whether these collisions took place on the road or on the pavement, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that in significant number of cases the pedestrian was to some degree culpable.

By way of adding a little perspective, here are comparable figures for the number of murders in the UK (http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports/murders-fatal-violence-uk.html):

Deaths (Persons)
Year	(a) Recorded murders	(b) Of which, shootings
2006	749	56
2007	772	53
2008	668	39
2009	626	39
2010	648	58

So if I read this correctly, you are much more likely to be shot dead than to be killed by a bicycle, but the risk of being killed by a car is far greater than either. From this I conclude that either (a) gun criminals should be forced to take out insurance, or (b) the risk of being killed by an errant cyclist is actually vanishingly small.

Not much use is compensation if you are killed though.

More interesting would be number of pax hospitalised by cyclists cycling....

These are the pedestrian casuality figures for 2009 to 2013 (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/448036/pedestrian-casualties-2013-data.pdf):

	Lorry	Van	Bus	Car	Motorbike	Bicycle
% of GB traffic	5	13	1	78	1	1
% of pedestrian deaths involved in	13	7	7	68	3	1
% of pedestrian serious injuries involved in	2	5	5	81	4	2
% of pedestrian slight injuries involved in	1	5	5	82	4	2
% of pedestrian casualties involved in	2	5	5	82	4	2

You will note that buses seem disproportionately effective at killing their would-be customers; you'll probably be less surprised to see that lorries punch above their weight in the carnage stakes. However (whilst bearing in mind that the numbers are so small that rounding errors could creep in) it does look like bicycles injure rather more people than they should.

Van drivers on the other hand can bask in the knowledge that they kill and injure fewer people than expected.

You have to take account of relative exposure when comparing distance-based measures. A high proportion of motor vehicle traffic is on roads with few or zero pedestrians (e.g. motorways), so the pedestrian casualities they are involved with arise from a small proportion of their total mileage. In comparison, cycle trips are predominantly in and around urban areas and streets where most pedestrians are to be found.

So rather than looking at the likelihood of each driver or cyclist hitting a pedestrian per km driven or cycled, we really should look from the point of view of the pedestrian: which mode is most likely to kill or injure them per trip or km walked. And looked at like that, it is quite clear that cyclists present a very small part of the total risk to pedestrians. I'd add that this doesn't mean the risk from cyclists should be ignored, but that should be considered through appropriate design of highway and cycling infrastructure, in particular not converting footways to shared-use 'cycle paths', a wholly inadequate form of cycling infrastructure that is bad for both groups.