Fixed Penalty Charge - for unicycling

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.

Now, I know that none of you are UK lawyers (or if you are, I’m not
expecting legal representation), but I’d like to know what the legal
standpoint is with unicycles on the pavement in England. I’ve used the
search facility, but haven’t come up with anything more than vague
rumour, speculation or feelings. Does anyone know where I could
actually look up what the law is regarding this, or how I would go
about finding out?

Just for the record, I was on my N36, and I ride that on the road or
cycle paths for around 99% of my journey. The place where I got pulled
up was approaching some traffic lights where nearly all the vehicles
waiting had left a reasonable space for me to ride up to the lights,
except for one van that was millimetres from the kerb. There was an
easy way up on to the path, and I was on it for around 5 – 10 meters.
But the copper was lurking just around the corner, on the last day of a
one week ‘stinger’ operation to catch red light jumpers, pavement
cyclists, people with their MP3 players too loud, and other such
hardened criminals. It seems like he was running short of his quota
for the week.

The officer recorded the vehicle as a “Nimbus Unicycle” (after I
corrected him for calling it a Nimbus Bicycle). If it did go to court,
and I was to turn up with my 20” Nimbus, and explain that I play hockey
on it, and am probably more manoeuvrable than most pedestrians, do you
think that the judge would see that in my favour? Or would they find
CCTV footage, realise it’s not the same, and get me in more trouble?

I know it’s only a £30 fine, but one of the main reasons I ride to work
each day is to avoid the £25 per week that the underground would cost.
So, one mornings ride will cost me 6 days worth of travel.

STM – in a very bad mood today


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semach.the.monkey
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