The recent widespread introduction of 20mph speed limits in built up areas has been welcomed by road danger reduction campaigners, but it might turn out to be inconvenient for cyclists. That’s the prospect in the London borough of Southwark, where the council plans to include cyclists and horse-drawn buggies in the scope of the 20mph limit to be introduced at the end of July.
The Borough has long had an unusual relationship with cyclists, until recently refusing to even consider segregated cycling infrastructure because it believed mixing cyclists with motor traffic would help get drivers to slow down. Although new Southwark cabinet member for transport Mark Williams has said he will reverse this policy, Southwark did for a long time appear to consider cyclists to be mobile speed bumps.
Now, it seems, cyclists are to be included in an initiative intended to reduce the danger to pedestrians from being hit by heavy motor vehicles and not soft, fleshy bike riders.
According to the London SE1 website, the council plans to circumvent the usual exclusion of cyclists from speed limits (which in the Road Traffic Act apply only to motor vehicles) by referring simply to 'vehicles' in its proposed traffic management order.
Although it appears never to have been used foer the purpose of applying speed limits to cyclists, the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 allows for speed limits to be imposed by local acts.
That ‘vehicles’ includes cycles is the same logic used by the Metropolitan Police to prosecute cyclists for exceeding the speed limit in Richmond Park. Carelessly framed traffic regulations refer in part to vehicles, although read as a whole they are clearly intended to apply only to motor vehicles.
As far as we are aware, nobody has ever mounted a serious legal challenge to a cycling speeding fine in Richmond Park. In a response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by road.cc last year, the Metropolitan Police said it was unable to find any record of legal advice indicating the limit applied to cyclists.
In Southwark, the council seems to think that cyclists are just as much of a hazard as motor vehicles (when they’re not using cyclists as unwitting moving-target traffic-calming, of course).
In a response to a member of the public who pointed out that it was unrealistic to expect unpowered vehicles to be able to accurately monitor their speed, the council's head of public realm Des Waters wrote: "The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 does indeed refer to 'motor vehicles' however since 1984 cycling as a modal share has grown substantially and the council receives a number of complaints from residents – particularly pedestrians – about the excessive speed of cyclists.
"Therefore it would be inappropriate to treat cyclists differently to any other form of traffic and effectively tie the hands of police when it comes to speed enforcement."
The Metropolitan Police seem quite happy to have their hands tied, though. In the Met’s formal objection to the plan, Catherine Linney of the force's traffic management unit said that enforcing the limit would be “unrealistic” and it should not be introduced unless the “look and feel” of the road made it obvious to drivers that the limit was 20mph. The Met apparently believes drivers are too dense to notice dirty great round signs with the number twenty on them.
Linney wrote: "Introducing speed limits where traffic speeds are too high places an unrealistic expectation to enforce on the Metropolitan Police.
"Whilst any reduction in speed is of benefit, the number of offenders will increase significantly in the roads which presently have average speeds of over 24 mph, placing an expectation on the Police for enforcement which we do not have the extra resources to fulfil.
"The Metropolitan Police objects to a 20 mph speed limit on any road in the London Borough of Southwark where the mean speed is above 24 mph.
"We also object to the implementation of the 20 mph limit where it is not obvious to the motorist through the look and feel of the road that the speed limit is 20 mph."
81 thoughts on “Southwark plans crackdown on 20+mph cyclists”
I’m going for a bike ride.
~X(
I’m going for a bike ride.
This should be
This should be entertaining
*gets a bucket of popcorn*
Honestly not that big a deal.
Honestly not that big a deal. Those using the fast routes such as CS7, or New Kent Road shouldn’t be affected, as those are red routes controlled by TfL, not Southwark.
For all the side roads and quietways, I don’t care. 20mph is plenty fast enough.
“Look and feel” of the road
“Look and feel” of the road eh? That is a new one. We have a 20 mph speed limit in the London Borough of Camden. All ignore it (including cyclists). I don’t think plod will buy into this.
So do I get this right, if
So do I get this right, if motorists routinely go well over 20 in a built up zone then despite what it would do to calm things down the police oppose 20mph speed limits and aren’t minded to enforce?
BTW drivers are too dense to notice large signs and even 12ft hight white painted 20 ones on the road in Cardiff and the speed limit isn’t currently enforced.
Hang on a minute, are you
Hang on a minute, are you really saying it won’t hurt a pedestrian if they are hit by a cyclist doing 25mph?
davkt wrote:Hang on a minute,
Nobody’s saying that. It will hurt significantly less than being hit by a car at the same speed though. F=MA.
teaboy wrote:davkt wrote:Hang
Well the article hints at it, “Now, it seems, cyclists are to be included in an initiative intended to reduce the danger to pedestrians from being hit by heavy motor vehicles and not soft, fleshy bike riders.” 70kg of bike and rider doing about 9m/s is still going to cause one hell of a mess if brought to a dead stop by a pedestrian, and most cyclists I know are rather more bony than soft and fleshy!
Seeing as non motorised
Seeing as non motorised vehicles aren’t required to have speedometers fitted…….how can this be enforceable?
Surely it’s down to the old ‘furious cycling’ rather than speeding?
Can you actually achieve
Can you actually achieve 20mph in Southwark? 😕
What with the terrible state of the roads, traffic lights every 50yrds, psychotic bus drivers, Boris bikes acting like random particles and taxi drivers moving to and from the kerb without warning.
I can’t wait for the first attempted prosecution. :))
@ flying scot
Spot on
@ flying scot
Spot on comment
Bicycles not legally required to have speedometer, and no bicycle speedometer is calibrated to meet any DOT test
Good luck LB Southwark with your dumb ass plan!
Have about actually supporting cycling and getting people out of cars and onto bikes 😉
hampstead_bandit wrote:@
Doesn’t matter whether you have a speedometer or not, the law doesn’t except ignorance as an excuse.
bikebot wrote:Doesn’t matter
Not knowing your actual speed is not the same thing as ignorance of the law.
In other words: without a law prescribing a standardised and calibrated means of bicycle speed measurement, any law requiring cyclists to adhere to a certain maximum speed cannot be practicably enforced.
seven wrote:bikebot
Yes it can. This is another common misconception.
A car is legally required to have a working speedometer. If a car was caught speeding and it was found to have a broken speedometer the driver would be charged for the speedometer. He would also still be guilty of speeding.
Ignorance of your speed is not a defence against speeding.
bikebot wrote:Ignorance of
The offence may stand, and in that respect your point is valid, but it becomes moot the second the first person comes along and mounts a challenge to the statute itself. You can’t simply make a law that says “it’s an offence to step over this here line when you’re wearing blue shoes” if the majority of people wearing blue shoes have no reliable means of seeing where that line is. Well, you can, but you won’t get very far with it. You either don’t prosecute it very often (in which case what was the point of having it in the first place?) or you prosecute freely in which case watch the legal challenges mount up.
I should be clear: I’m not against speed limits for cyclists, if they are enforceable. As things currently stand (and in any feasible near future) they aren’t. Certainly not for a single patch of central London. Yeah, this whole street is a 20mph limit; this bit you can ride at 25mph with impunity but fifty yards down the road you might get done for doing exactly the same thing. Not seriously going to happen, is it?
seven wrote:The offence may
As a byelaw, a Council really can propose whatever they want, including banning blue shoes. However, they have to be approved by the appropriate Gov’t Minister which is to avoid any conflict with national laws or interests. Presumably Ken Clarke was the minister with responsibility for shoes, and would have intervened in the blue shoe banning proposal.
Most local byelaws that introduce 20mph zones reference the national legislation, Southwark have specifically used their own choice of words to include all road vehicles rather than just motor vehicles, and in law bicycles are vehicles. If that wording is approved by a minister, it’s law in Southwark.
The requirements for signage on 20mph zones are significantly simpler than 30mph. However, concerns have been raised in the past about using such signage borough wide. Obviously many more cars than bicycles are affected, not just because there are more motorists, but that the average speed of cyclists in Southwark is already below that limit. If there is any legal challenges, it’s more likely to come from a motoring group.
I am interested to see if they will modify their 20mph signage in anyway. Where a 20mph road in a neighbouring borough, joins a 20 mph road in Southwark, the position for cyclists would be ambiguous, and that might be a matter for a legal challenge. The Police in the Richmond Park have signs placed around the road which specifically include cyclists in the speed limit.
Regarding the speedometer defence. You might find a judge has remarkably little sympathy, and tell you bluntly to ride at walking speed if you can’t tell how fast you’re going. The “how could I know” defence is used in all kinds of area of law and is often very badly received. Personally, I know when I’m hitting around 20mph even without looking at the computer.
bikebot wrote:Doesn’t matter
But thankfully, the law as it stands doesn’t support Southwark’s interesting ideas about a cyclist speed limit. So I can safely remain blissfully unaware of my actual speed (like I really ever hit 20mph anyway).
jacknorell wrote:bikebot
I’ve been following this story for sometime, there’s no legal reason at all why Southwark Council or any other can’t introduce speed limits against all road users, despite some common misconceptions that this is impossible.
Nor can I see a particularly strong reason to object to such speed limits in the congested central areas of our cities. Lots of groups have had a say in these consultations, to disregard the concerns of pedestrians would be fairly hypocritical when at the same time we’re asking for our concerns about vehicles to be listened to.
If someone wanted to introduce a speed limit where it was inappropriate I would object. I have no need or desire to put down times in the centre of London. For reference, I would classify myself as a fast commuter, I can cruise above 20mph when cycling into town fairly easily and I’ll pass through Southwark. The fact that I can do that, doesn’t mean I have to do that everywhere.
bikebot wrote:Nor can I see a
And why, pray tell, would a pedestrian be in the middle of the road where I’m cycling?
Mostly, they have these nice segregated things called sidewalks / pavements to walk on, or cross-walks, that I respect (whenever they’re actually in use).
This isn’t about pedestrian safety, in fact, cycles are hardly an issue here. Speeding metal boxes are though.
Getting off the soapbox now…!
jacknorell wrote:bikebot
And that’s why I’ll take on board the request of the most vulnerable.
It’s amazing how quickly cyclists who object to these sort of proposals can display the same attitude to pedestrians as that of the worst drivers towards cyclists.
A pedestrian would be in the middle of the road, because he has a right to cross it. Anywhere.
I’ve seen plenty of pedestrians knocked down by cyclists, the injuries may be a lot less than for a car but it’s not something you’ll do for fun, and it’s a genuine concern for the elderly.
bikebot wrote:
A pedestrian
Is that true? I mean I know I can cross the road anywhere but if I am on a bike and I signal and turn into side road a pedestrian is walking over and hit them is it not their fault? Have they not failed to make sure they are good to cross? Note that I am all in favour of live and let live on the roads and don’t generally knock over pedestrians, but it is interesting.
If they are NOT at fault then I have to change my behaviour a little, both as a cyclist and as a pedestrian B-)
As for 20mp zones, I have one locally (Walthamstow) . Lots of people ignore it knowing that they haven’t got a snowflakes chance in hell of being caught, but it has slowed the traffic down (it only takes one person doing 20 to slow the whole road down).
alotronic wrote:bikebot
Is that true? I mean I know I can cross the road anywhere but if I am on a bike and I signal and turn into side road a pedestrian is walking over and hit them is it not their fault? Have they not failed to make sure they are good to cross? Note that I am all in favour of live and let live on the roads and don’t generally knock over pedestrians, but it is interesting.
If they are NOT at fault then I have to change my behaviour a little, both as a cyclist and as a pedestrian B-)
As for 20mp zones, I have one locally (Walthamstow) . Lots of people ignore it knowing that they haven’t got a snowflakes chance in hell of being caught, but it has slowed the traffic down (it only takes one person doing 20 to slow the whole road down).— bikebot
That is about the gist of it.
Pedestrians are not obliged to only cross when the green man is lit, when you have the flashing amber that makes a pelican crossing subject to the same rules as a zebra crossing, i.e. if a pedestrian has one foot on the crossing you must stop.
I know many people don’t but they are the rules.
alotronic wrote:Is that true?
My driving instructor told me that if you hit a pedestrian in the road it’s almost always your fault. I believe that’s true when you’re cycling as well.
Not to mention the fact that a pedestrian crossing a side road always has priority over vehicles turning into it.
ollieclark wrote:alotronic
My driving instructor told me that if you hit a pedestrian in the road it’s almost always your fault. I believe that’s true when you’re cycling as well.
Not to mention the fact that a pedestrian crossing a side road always has priority over vehicles turning into it.— alotronic
As regards pedestrians and cyclists, it may not be the case that fault lies with the cyclist in the event of a crash. I’ve had a few very close calls over the years while commuting in London when pedestrians have walked straight out without looking and this seems to be on the increase as people’s reliance on smartphones increases. I ride very defensively and I do ride out from the kerb, taking the lane. Cycling is NOT the same as driving. I’d be interested to see the results of studies into pedestrian/cyclist crashes but I rather suspect that in a very high percentage of incidents, the pedestrian would be at fault. People do rely on their hearing as a warning of oncoming traffic, which simply doesn’t work with regard to cyclists.
In well over 20 years of cycle commuting in London, the only time I’ve ever actually be knocked from my bike to the ground happened when a Danish couple looked the wrong way before stepping out in front of me. I was taking the lane and I was highly aware and hauled on the brakes immediately I saw them step out, which is probably why all three of us suffered only small cuts and bruises. My wife had a similar incident two years ago when a Polish woman stepped out from the front of a bus, but looking the wrong way. Both fell to the ground but the woman quickly got up and hobbled away. My wife had a lot of severe bruising afterwards that was uncomfortable, plus a mild sprain of her wrist, but no serious injuries fortunately. The wire basket on my wife’s bike was hugely distorted after the crash and I strongly suspect that it was very effective in absorbing the impact shock and preventing any more serious injuries.
Regarding speed enforcement of cyclists, radar equipment is inaccurate when used on bicycles. A decent lawyer would be able to throw out any charge made against a cyclist based on evidence from radar equipment as it is widely known that these units are suited to use with motor vehicles only (they need a wide frontal area to take readings from). Why anyone would want to ride at more than 20mph along a back street in Southwark is a question worth asking, given all the potholes and parked cars.
For anyone who isn’t aware though, Southwark has been very pro-cycling in many respects. The council directly helped the Peckham BMX Club with sourcing funding for its £1.2 million BMX track in Burgess Park.
OldRidgeback wrote:
As
There was a study done in Westminster. It found 60% of pedestrian/cyclist collisions were the fault of the pedestrian, 40% the cyclist. The lack of a ‘not sure’ category does make me wonder what methodology was used though.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drivers-to-blame-for-twothirds-of-bicycle-collisions-in-westminster-8602166.html
(midway down story, couldn’t find the link to the original research)
pikeamus wrote:
There was a
I did see the original sometime ago (I like data). The danger in focusing on the headline is that it boils a lot of grey data into black and white answers. It’s not so much a “not sure” category, as the balance of multiple contributing factors in most incidents. Very few accidents are pure black and white.
But from a safety campaigners point of view, the cause can be less important than the practicality of countering each of them. That’s especially true when children are involved. We may not like it, but often that means there is a greater onus on one party for prevention even if they do not bear the greatest responsibility for causing the incidents.
I’m gonna need a faster bike
I’m gonna need a faster bike ………… 👿
Airzound wrote:I’m gonna need
…and I’m going to need faster legs.
Around here the council,
Around here the council, which is on the verge of introducing a whole load of new 20mph local limits, has an SLA with Police Scotland to provide adequate plod to enforce those limits. Seems to me the Met is saying in a round about way that they won’t enforce it unless someone pays for it. Luckily our council isn’t quite like Southwark in that they’re not barmy enough to think the new limits can practicably be enforced on cyclists. They’re just barmy in other ways.
Just had a thought. I know,
Just had a thought. I know, scary! 😀
Usain Bolt averages out at about 25mph over 100m (standing start) and hits a maximum speed in excess of 27mph (60 to 80m).
He’s not legally required to have a speedometer either.
“The law is a ass – a idiot” Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist
“Usain Bolt averages out at
“Usain Bolt averages out at about 25mph over 100m (standing start) and hits a maximum speed in excess of 27mph (60 to 80m).”
Yes. However Usain is not a vehicle.
I don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable to expect cyclists to observe some speed limits. 20mph is actually quite fast for a lot of cyclists. 30mph is faster than most ever go. I was going down a hill this morning at 54.8kph (max) and thinking to myself “this is way faster than my wife would ever cycle”.
Ever been hit by a bike at 30mph? It hurts. Sometimes more than a car due to all the sticky out bits.
ollieclark wrote:
Ever been
No, I haven’t – but given the choice between bike or car, i’d pick the bike any day of the week.
ollieclark wrote:
Ever been
Perhaps you should consider not repeatedly walking out in front of fast moving cars and bikes. 😉
kie7077 wrote:ollieclark
I wonder how well that attitude would go down here applied to cyclist the next time one gets run over… I’m told by reliable sources sometimes cyclists run red lights so it’s not as though walking out means the pedestrian is in the wrong, is it?
Maybe you should consider not cycling on the road the next time you get butthurt about some KSIed cyclist, eh?
“however since 1984 cycling
“however since 1984 cycling as a modal share has grown substantially ”
pull the other one, for verilly it hath bells on… 20% increase on nothing is still nothing…
Paul_C wrote:”however since
Modal share is the wrong figure to quote anyway, in TfL’s data modal share is EVERYTHING. Tubes, buses, trains, walking, everything!
As a percentage of road users in the centre of London (zones 1&2) cycling is now around a 12% share throughout the day, with almost a quarter at peak hours. There’s quite a bias towards commuting rather than social use as it appears to drop away at weekends or evenings
After a lovely ride home from
After a lovely ride home from work with merely a handful of attempts made to injure me, reading this toss has put me in a foul mood. F*ck this sh*t country.
If they pulled you over and
If they pulled you over and they saw that you had a cycle computer on your handlebars then I’m sure they’d do you, had they clocked you with their radar gun. You couldn’t exactly argue you weren’t aware of your speed if you had a computer telling you now could you.
So if you get pulled over, hide your computer pronto 😉
The worry is that, as people
The worry is that, as people on bicycles are easier to stop than people in armoured mobility scooters, any enforcement will be focused on the people doing the least harm.
The greatest problem with riding as it is, is being overtaking badly. By allowing the vulnerable road user to travel at speeds at which they cannot be overtaken, the vulnerable road user’s safety is improved with little more danger added to the surrounding environment. Especially as they are unlikely to be able to overtake a larger vehicle in front if that vehicle is travelling at the given speed limit. Instead of the larger road user using the smaller as a speed bump, you have the converse, which is a far safer situation all round.
Additionally, in my experience, motorists often treat cyclists less as incentives to slow down and more as moving targets that absolutely must be overtaken, regardless of how far it will advance them in their own journey. They’re like the sprint-checkpoint on wheels. Which is not a very good thing for a human life to represent.
Sorry, anyway, I think this is balls. Because it’s fundamentally less safe. And that’s a stupid thing to introduce into legislation.
Hang on knob-jockeys!
The
Hang on knob-jockeys!
The 20mph figure for motor vehicles wasn’t arrived at by magic, I ‘guess’ it is a speed that would mean fewer pedestrians would be killed/seriously injured in collisions than would be at 30mph?
(please correct me, I haven’t studied this, you can probably tell)
So a reasonable speed limit for cyclists would be one that equates to a similar amount of energy/danger/safety to that of vehicles?
So maybe 70mph or so?
(another wild-arsed guess, it’s late, I’ve had wine, can’t be arsed trading facts with other bike riders)
Mountainboy wrote:Hang on
Speed limits were mostly a factor of visibility, road conditions and braking distance so as to avoid an accident happening in the first place. See if you can beat the braking distance of a car on your bike at those speeds. Wet and dry conditions.
bikebot wrote:Mountainboy
Precisely, and as a cyclist if I’m involved in a collision with a pedestrian whilst I’m doing 25mph I’m likely to get badly hurt unlike a car driver, this is the reason this law isn’t needed – because most cyclists will cycle cautiously and the other idiots won’t slow down even if the law is changed anyway.
Another factor is the width of a bicycle is much less than the width of a car meaning cyclists can give give pedestrians a wider berth and have more forewarning of any stupid moves they might make. And, if a cyclist is traveling at 25mph then their heart is racing and the thinking part of their stopping distance is going to be much quicker than the lard arse in the car reading texts.
Quote:The Borough has long
I am not well enough informed on the doings of the borough of Southwark to comment generally on how they deal with cyclists; the way this is worded does sound callous. But whatever you think of segregated infrastructure, ‘roads for everyone’ is not unsound reasoning, and suggesting that the council regards us as little more than “mobile speedbumps” may be a tad unfair. To the extent we calm traffic, I think it’s a good thing!
The more cyclists on the road the better. You don’t have to be a hardcore vehicular cyclist [bias alert: I am] to eventually reap the benefits of encountering more motorists who through experience will be trained to better deal with your presence on the road.
Sam Walker wrote:
I am not
To put it into context, these quotes about mobile speedbumps have come up during the campaign around the Elephant & Castle which is controlled by Southwark.
When the southern junction was redesigned just a few years ago, campaigners wanted it to have a left turn bypass lane for cyclists. The Council had an active policy of using cyclists as a traffic calming measure, and it is suspected this lead to them not providing the bypass lane, with everyone using the large ASL box across multiple lanes of traffic.
That policy has obviously had a spotlight on it following the continuing accidents and recent death at that junction.
Bit of a pointless debate,
Bit of a pointless debate, really. Councils have no legal authority to enforce speed limits, if the Police aren’t supportive of the 20mph, then you’re not going to get booked even if technically cycles are included in the TRO.
Love to see the cops policing
Love to see the cops policing this.
They will have to give cyclists a buffer like 3mph over the limit like they do with drivers or is that just for special ones?
tbh its the slow cyclist that cause more problems, usually riding in the gutter, not shoulder checking or indicating and blinding people in their head to toe HiViz. :*
Leodis wrote:Love to see the
In my comments on this thread, I’ve purposefully been a little provocative, because I knew a lot of cyclists would object to this on principle rather than any real concern about the impact of the law itself.
In likelihood, the Police will give not just 3mph leeway, but quite a bit more. Speed guns are very unreliable on bikes, they’d need to see someone giving it quite a lot of welly.
Which is actually fairly similar to the situation in Richmond Park, where the Police largely don’t care about cyclists riding around a fair amount over the limit. What they don’t like is people absolutely hammering it down the hills amongst traffic. That’s why they are often parked up at the foot of Sawyer of Dark hill of an evening or weekend, to catch the Strava numpties trying to do hills the easy way. Sometimes they’ll just pull people over to offer a word of advice…
We might see some enforcement at specific points (against all traffic), but I really don’t expect a “crackdown” as the road.cc headline suggests. And besides, as I mentioned much earlier, the byelaw doesn’t cover the red routes which are set by TfL, and CS7 which passes through Southwark is mostly a red route.
Low hanging fruit?
Whilst big
Low hanging fruit?
Whilst big companies get away with tax avoidance and the Queen’s horse is found to be doped up. Councils are going after more cash from the public under the disguise of improving safety.
Time the government accepted that self regulation no longer works especially as those high up are at it.
They could fit loads of these
They could fit loads of these everywhere?
Quote:the council’s head of
Translated as: “there’s nothing in the primary legislation that allows us to do this, but we’re going to show we can flex our muscles and do something (which we can’t enforce anyway)”
Yet more time wasted by council numpties on a piddling issue, when there are significantly more important road safety issues to be dealing with.
Has anyone ever tested
Has anyone ever tested standard police radar guns on cyclists? I would imagine that they are less accurate than when used on a car, due to the lack of a large reflective surface and the greater amount of relative motion from flapping clothing and turning wheels.
I don’t know Southwark, but I can’t imagine that many cyclists will be regularly exceeding the limit. Throw in that the police don’t seem interested in enforcing this and we probably won’t see anyone getting ticketed for a good while.
pikeamus wrote:Has anyone
Some time ago going down the A4 into Reading there was a police officer in a bus lay-by with a radar gun who kindly shouted out my speed to me as I went past. Yes it was the same as what my garmin was showing.
was it a “good” speed?
was he
was it a “good” speed?
was he shouting it out in “encouragement”, like –
“well done, 45mph, bravo”
or shouted more like this –
“oi you are doing 45 in a 40mph zone!”
lol
The Met spokesperson
This is a new one on me. I can think of several dual-carriageways or motorways that have 50 limits, but the “look and feel of the road” suggests it should be a 70.
The police seem quite happy to enforce those.
If cyclists are exceeding
If cyclists are exceeding 20mph in 20mph zones chances are its as a desperate attempt to get out of the way of the motorist doing 30mph and hooting angrily as they come up behind them.
Interesting that there are no
Interesting that there are no comments here about Metropolitan Police’s formal (and pragmatic) objection to the plan being that roads should be designed for the speed limits desired e.g. 20mph, rather than just putting up signs & paint on the roads.
Though often poorly designed, many existing cycle ways prevent cyclists from speeding, without needing formal limits, signs etc.
Highway code rule 170 (for vehicles) includes:
Take extra care at junctions. You should
• watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way
Seems like a non-issue to
Seems like a non-issue to me.
If you are in free-flowing traffic you wouldn’t be able to exceed the speed limit by any substantial amount unless you were overtaking vehicles that were adhering to the limit – this seems reckless to me. In slow-moving traffic it’s reasonable to filter but to do so at speeds over 20 mph again seems reckless.
The only time that a reasonable cyclist is likely to fall foul of rules like this would be if the road were clear and they were pushing on fairly hard. In this circumstance the point about danger to pedestrians does become valid. To say ‘take it a bit easy, you’re in the middle of town’ is perfectly fair.
On the other hand, I’m very much opposed to local authorities making up local rules of this sort. Road signage should mean exactly the same thing wherever it is placed. The idea that the rules and parameters for using the roads can be different depending on which borough/vilage/town/city you happen to be in at the time just seems like madness. It may be perfectly legal and enforceable but it’s still bonkers.
Finally, as the radar guns used by the police were not designed/tested/calabrated for use on cycles any atempt to prosecute a speeding cyclist is likely to be thrown out if challenged.
20 mph??? Surely one
20 mph??? Surely one exsanguinates through ones ears at such an extreme velocity. :B
Only when going through a
Only when going through a tunnel. 😀
Speed limits on motor
Speed limits on motor vehicles were introduced in 1903 in order to protect members of the public from the harm that can be done by excessive speed made possible by engines. The speed limit in 1903 was set at 20mph; this limit was routinely breached by early motorists. In 1934 the speed limit in towns was set at 30mph.
Not then and not since have any laws been enacted to make cyclists adhere to the speeding regulations brought in for motorised vehicles.
Rule 124 of the currently in force Highway Code states speed limits on a tabulated panel, but there is no row that applies to bicycles.
“A person who drives a motor vehicle on a road at a speed exceeding a limit imposed by or under any enactment to which this section applies shall be guilty of an offence.” (Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, s.89.1)
Bicycles are not legally required to have speedometer, and no bicycle speedometer is in any event calibrated to meet any Department of Transport test.
Despite all of this, cyclists can always be charged under the laws relating to furious cycling, and councils have the power to put by-laws in place which affect only their own adopted roads eg. Bristol City Council has brought in across-the-board (or, as good as) 20mph speed limits within the city boundary, but their own website states that “Who does the 20mph speed limit apply to? All motorised vehicles.”
I don’t see how Southwark would enforce a speed limit on bicycles, any more than I see how the Royal Parks do… Does it just come down to a policeman saying, “Ooo – that seemed a bit fast!”?
brooksby wrote:I don’t see
Yes.
bikebot wrote:brooksby
Well, thats just silly! 8}
brooksby wrote:bikebot
Well, thats just silly! 8}— brooksby
How do you think the traffic Police deal with most offences. Only a few can be measured, most tickets are the subjective view of the issuing officer.
bikebot wrote:How do you
So a police officer who likely never cycles, can look at someone cycling, think that they seemed to be going a bit fast, and issue them a ticket??? 😕 That’s actually quite worrying. I’d just always assumed that speeding tickets were issued based on something a bit more measurable…
(Where is the poster called Stumps when you need them, for the cop’s eye view on it? 😉 )
brooksby wrote:bikebot
Yup, as they can with motorists. How often is that a problem, really?
To make law enforcement work you need police officers who can be trusted to make the right call >99% of the time, for the <1% that's what appeals are for.
Really, this won't affect you unless you actually are riding like a tit.
nuclear coffee wrote:brooksby
Yup, as they can with motorists. How often is that a problem, really?
To make law enforcement work you need police officers who can be trusted to make the right call >99% of the time, for the <1% that's what appeals are for.
Really, this won't affect you unless you actually are riding like a tit.— bikebot
I can’t help but share bikebot’s concerns somewhat. When a traffic officer makes a subjective assesment of someone’s driving it’s based on a great deal of training and experience, inevitably including the experience of being a normal motorist. When they make a subjective judgement about a cyclists behaviour the same may not be true. Many motorists beleive that any speed over about 15mph to ‘too fast’ for a cyclist regardless of what the speed limit is.
Matt eaton wrote:
I can’t
You mean brooksby, I’m mostly fine with the idea.
I’m a regular user of Richmond Park where the Police do enforce the speed limit against cyclists. I’ve never seen or heard of them fine a cyclist who wasn’t exceeding the limit by a large margin. It’s actually quite rare for them to issue a ticket at all, they usually just stop people and give a safety lecture.
Matt eaton wrote:
I can’t
Yeah, I wasn’t bothered by this when I thought it required some objective measure of speed (and I’m not a speedy cyclist anyway unless there’s a steep downward hill of which there aren’t many in Southwark), but police officers (and, dear God, will this be enforceable by PCSOs?) are often not the most knowledgeable/reliable when it comes to making judgement calls about cyclists.
I mean, what if this woman moves over here and becomes a PCSO, eh?
http://road.cc/content/news/124321-video-california-reserve-police-officer-suspended-posting-i-hate-cyclists%E2%80%9D
bikebot wrote:brooksby
Well, thats just silly! 8}— bikebot
How do you think the traffic Police deal with most offences. Only a few can be measured, most tickets are the subjective view of the issuing officer.— brooksby
Except that speeding offences need an instrument reading by an approved and calibrated instrument… there’s no subjectivity, besides in who they manage to get a reading off of.
jacknorell wrote:bikebot
Well, thats just silly! 8}— brooksby
How do you think the traffic Police deal with most offences. Only a few can be measured, most tickets are the subjective view of the issuing officer.— bikebot
Except that speeding offences need an instrument reading by an approved and calibrated instrument… there’s no subjectivity, besides in who they manage to get a reading off of.— brooksby
You’re referencing the national legislation, and the wording they use to enforce speeding by “motor vehicles”. As I understand it, the requirements for enforcement in Southwark may be entirely different as it’s a byelaw.
But we have a solicitor in the room, and for the moment he’s forgotten to bill anyone. I say we take advantage of him before he suddenly remembers.
I’m getting tied up in knots
I’m getting tied up in knots a bit thinking about this. If every locality is able to make their own road rules then any road user travelling from A to B needs to be aware of any specific local bylaws for any area that they travel though in addition to national laws. I understand that ignorance of the law is no excuse but it seems unreasonable to expect everyone in the land to be aware of specific local bylaws for any area that they might travel through.
Matt eaton wrote:I’m getting
Well in theory no, all byelaws are approved by the relevant government minister at the national level so as to avoid conflicts. But it does still happen, parking regulations are different in almost every single London borough, and that’s something that motorists are always complaining about.
I am interested in knowing what Southwark will be doing to signpost this rule, as they absolutely will have to do something for it to be enforceable.
bikebot wrote:Well in theory
Every new by-law has to be thumbprinted by Eric Pickles in jam =))
Id be interested in how the
Id be interested in how the Council can circumvent a Law thats on the Statute Books, with what based on a “What they please” basis. Not that im condoning speeding, just wondering how the council can do it. Be the same as deciding that although you need to be 18 to buy Alcohol they will decide that shops in their Borough could legally sell alcohol to 12 year olds.
Das wrote:Id be interested in
Are you interested enough to read the comments that have already explained this.
Re unenforceable – Aren’t the
Re unenforceable – Aren’t the council allowed to install speed cameras? Are our politicians so in fear of Jeremy Clarkson and the tabloids?
Who’s gonna catch a 20mph
Who’s gonna catch a 20mph cyclist anyway?
“The Metropolitan Police
“The Metropolitan Police objects to a 20 mph speed limit on any road in the London Borough of Southwark where the mean speed is above 24 mph.
The MPS objects to a 20mph speed limit anywhere it is required.
FFS
I imagine this is a story
I imagine this is a story getting blown slightly out of proportion. As a chap who rides his bike through Southwark a lot – I live in the glorious republic of SE15 and work in the slightly less glorious areas of Shoreditch, Soho and occasionally other parts of town – I guess I could potentially be affected by this new law rather a lot. Looking at my best Strava times, and as a pretty quick cyclist, very few of them exceed 32kph by much. That’s not to say I don’t go a lot faster at times – I do – but the average speed in town is pretty slow if you stop for lights. So I wonder how easy it would be to get caught out? Do radar guns work on a cyclist? Do speed cameras? CCTV is the main way to spot illegal drivers, but that doesn’t work for a bike.
Maybe it’s more of a warning thing. I’ll keep an eye out for the rozzers, and report back if I see any change in attitude or enforcement.
We’ve had a 20mph limit in LB
We’ve had a 20mph limit in LB Camden for over a year. Is it enforced?
Of course not. The local Police commander admitted in Camden New Journal newspaper the Police does not have resources to enforce 20mph limit in Camden. If you cycle in Camden every day you’ll see a lack of enforcement with prevalence of speeding, red light jumping, asl infringing, mobile texting motorists…as well as cyclists doing whatever the hell they like and pedestrians walking willy-nilly all over the place
hampstead_bandit wrote:We’ve
I find it quite interersting that the police admit that they don’t have resource to enforce a 20mph limit. This would suggest that enforcing a 30mph is less resouce-hungry but for the life of me I can’t understand why this would be. To my mind they either have the resouce to enforce speed limits (regardless of the actual limit) or they don’t. Why is 20 more difficult than 30?