semach.the.monkey wrote:
Well, after riding several hundreds of miles through London in the last
2 years, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. But today I
received a fixed penalty notice by the City Of London Police for
cycling on a footpath.
Well, after 3 weeks of procrastinating, contemplating and deliberating,
I paid the fine today.
I still stand by my belief that I did nothing wrong, and in the same
circumstances I would do exactly the same again. However, I read
everyones comments and opinions, and although some of it was not what I
wanted to hear, I agree that for benefit of the community it'll be best
to shut up and pay up. Keeping unicycling just under the legal radar
works well for most of us most of the time.
For what it's worth, the legal situation seems with this is split in to
two parts.
The first, is if a unicycle is allowed to cycle on a path. According
to the 1835 Highways Act, a person shall be guilty of an offence if he
"shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any
road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot-passengers
or shall wilfully lead or drive any carriage of any description upon
any such footpath or causeway." Section 85 of the Local Government Act
1888 extended the definition of "carriage" to include "bicycles,
tricycles, velocipedes and other similar machines.". So, this boils
down to how similar a unicycle is to a bicycle.
The second part is whether a Fixed Penalty Notice should have been
issued in this circumstance. When this was introduced in 1999, Paul
Boateng issued some guidelines which stated "The introduction of the
fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel
obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show
consideration to other pavement users when doing so. Chief police
officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many
cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle
on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is
required." In my particular case, I believe that I was a responsible
cyclist, although I was unable to show consideration to other pavement
users because there were none around at the time.
I'd like to thank those of you that sent me messages of support,
including helpful links from anonymous sources.
STM
--
semach.the.monkey
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