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Londoner to challenge red light fixed penalty notice after appeal raises £2300 for legal feesAlex_Paxton

Londoner to challenge red light fixed penalty notice after appeal raises £2300 for legal fees

Alex Paxton issued fine after moving ahead of occupied advanced stop box
by John Stevenson
Wed, Sep 18, 2013 12:18
64

A 27-year-old rider who was issued a fixed-penalty notice for stopping in front of an advanced stop box occupied by a car is appealing the fine after donors kicked in over £2000 to help with his legal fees.

Alex Paxton was issued the notice for allegedly jumping a red light last month. He had positioned himself ahead of an advanced stop box blocked by a motorist at the junction of Fulham High Street and New King’s Road in London.

Alex had intended to position himself in the cyclists’ box in order to turn right. In order to avoid having to cross  three lanes of moving traffic, he decided to position himself ahead of the traffic and ahead of the advanced stop line (ASL).

A police officer witnessed the alleged offence and radioed a colleague, who stopped Alex along the road he had turned into and gave him the fixed-penalty notice. Having not seen the incident, the officer that issued the fine could not assess the greater risk Alex would have been in had he positioned himself behind the white line. Alex was unaware whether the car driver had also been given a fixed-penalty notice.

Unlike many cyclists who begrudgingly pay fixed-penalty notices, Alex decided to contest it in court after receiving advice from the Cyclists’ Defence Fund.

An appeal set up to raise the £2,000 that the case is estimated to cost exceeded the target in just 4 days and has now raised over £2,300.

Alex said: “My resolve probably would have faltered taking this to court had there not been such overwhelming support from fellow cyclists to back my case.”

Advanced Stop Lines are suposed to make junctions safer for cyclists by allowing them to move away ahead of motor vehicles. However, cyclists are only supposed to access advanced stop boxes via filter lanes or dotted access lines on the box, and the law is unclear on how cyclists are supposed to act if they find a box occupied.

Rhia Weston, CTC’s Road Justice campaigner said: “The Department for Transport plans to make amendments to the regulation governing ASLs to overcome the problems of accessing ASLs. The fact that such changes are in the pipeline gives hope that the DfT will also clarify the law governing what a cyclist should do if an ASL is illegally occupied by a vehicle.

“CDF agreed to support his legal challenge on the basis that it could set a legal precedent around the enforcement of ASLs.”

Alex Paxton
ASLs
advanced stop lines
police
London
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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64 comments

Avatar
hood replied to bashthebox | 10 years ago
0 likes
bashthebox wrote:

But how are you to know the box is occupied until you're up by it? So, so many times I've filtered up stationary traffic when a large vehicle is blocking my view of the box, only to find a car or van occupying it. What should one do then?

this happens even when there isnt a large vehicle in the way. even with just a row of cars it is difficult to tell if they decided to edge forwards into the bike box or not.

if i know the lights have only just turned red i will always edge forwards into the box (as i know the lights only just turned red so i have time to get there). if there is a car in the box just sit up along side it's bonnet. the driver cant miss you and you should be able to pull off safely because only an idiot motorist would rev and crash into the back of you the minute the light turns amber/green...

Oh wait.....

Avatar
PhilRuss | 10 years ago
0 likes

[[[[ I cycle, I drive. When I approach a YELLOW BOX junction in me car, I know how to keep off it---I don't drive onto it. Our cyclists' ASL boxes have been around long enough now for drivers to AVOID encroaching onto them. All this twaddle suggesting drivers "sometimes have no choice" is just that---twaddle.
And, as mentioned by FARRELL earlier, our policeman "Stampy", ever keen to uphold the law--to the letter--must surely have rebuked, if not ticketed, countless DRIVERS for encroaching onto cyclists' ASL's. N'est pas?
P.R.

Avatar
hood replied to PhilRuss | 10 years ago
0 likes
PhilRuss wrote:

[[[[ I cycle, I drive. When I approach a YELLOW BOX junction in me car, I know how to keep off it---I don't drive onto it. Our cyclists' ASL boxes have been around long enough now for drivers to AVOID encroaching onto them. All this twaddle suggesting drivers "sometimes have no choice" is just that---twaddle.

+! !!!

I dont get it, a green ASL box is the same as a yellow junction box isnt it? you shouldnt go into it until you know you can get out of it.
Right?

I understand on London roads this is not always realistic, so when the light is green edging forwards into the bike box is fair enough.
hopefully you then will be able to move forwards before the light turns red, and get out of the box the other end.
if not, you stay in the bike box,,,, BUT
be aware, you are in the BIKE box, and lots of cyclists are going to be filtering to the front, unaware you are in it (because from further back it is never clear how far forwards a car has gone), so when they get to the box they have no choice but to crowd round the car. its not their fault, its not your fault (maybe it is the fault of poor road design!?)
so when the light turns green wait patiently to let them get out of your way before moving forwards.
its all pretty simple to me, have i missed something or misunderstood how all this works????

Avatar
Matt eaton | 10 years ago
0 likes

Once again the real problem is road design.

I don't know this particular junction but most ASLs have nearside filter lanes encoraging cyclists to filter inside cars to reach the ASL where they should then position themselves appropriotly depending on which direction they are going ie moving over to the right if turning right. If the ASL is used as intended nd the cyclits find the box occupied they are left with little option but to cross the stop line and position correctly if turning right. Most of us realise that it is better to filter between lanes if turning right, allowing us to merge into the correct lane if the trafic starts moving again, but road markings and lanes rarely encorage this behaviour.

For what its worth I hope that Alex wins his case and the design of the junction is reviewed as a result. Maybe he was pushing his luck at the time, maybe he wasn't; that's not really the point.

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