Yoga for Cyclists, part 18: Arms

@mctrials23 But the thing is the cyclist is in his own lane (slightly outside to begin with but moves back in long before he gets parallel to the car) and the car driver is in theirs, so what offence has been committed (contrary to Nigel's previous assertion, there is no obligation for a cyclist to leave a minimum distance when passing a parked car, and he can clearly see there is nobody in the parked car so no danger of it pulling away or a door opening)? He has not crossed into the oncoming traffic lane, clearly at low speed uphill he poses no threat of danger to the oncoming car, where is the offence in law? One could say it would be more courteous to let the oncoming car through (on the other hand one could say as the cyclist is labouring uphill it would be courteous for the oncoming car to wait for the cyclist) but what law or Highway Code rule has been broken? The whole thing smacks of police and magistrates being determined to teach the cyclist a lesson for having the temerity to report a separate incident and ignoring the law in order to do so.

This bit of the BBC Skoda story made me laugh: "Campaigners placed an alternative placard beneath the advertising board for several hours, which "attracted support" from national park visitors, with many "unaware of the partnership" to their dismay." Between that, and the campaigner's photo which actually shows a Skoda next to the sign, I'm not sure if it's just the Streisand effect, or if they actually work for Skoda's marketing team.

The second quoted line doesn't appear to suggest that.

Well, what I was actually suggesting was a lack of clarity in road.cc's reporting (I know - also highly unusual!), but quite possibly aided and abetted by obfuscatory answers from West Yorks' finest.

Hmm - possible - but if that's what was meant then the wording is misleading: "him disputing the matter in court, where the subsequent penalty may also have been means-tested" suggests he 'chose to have his day in court', rather than simply pleading not guilty having been forced to go there. Also, later on the article it suggests that the final amount was just driven by the means testing.

@sigirides Oh 100%. There is little to no consistency between police forces and little consistency within the same police force. That doesn't removed the fact it should be actioned when it happens.

"nor is there a fixed penalty option (as there is no licence requirement for cycling)" What does that mean? There is definitely a fixed penalty option for careless cycling. It was created by the Fixed Penalty Offences Order 2025 and came into force on 24 February 2025. Obviously, there are no points on your licence for it, since that would make no sense, but what does that have to do with anything? Do they mean that they think the penalty is too small without points as well? If so, that's not no fixed penalty option, that's a fixed penalty option that they don't think is adequate. Or was this offence committed before 24 February 2025 and took this long to get to court? They need to say what they actually mean...

@mctrials23 I've been to court over the exact same situation in reverse, and the driver was declared innocent. I've reported a bunch of these situations in reverse, drivers love to push through when there isn't room, without any action other than the one time it made it to court. Obviously there's a bit of two tiered policing going on here.

@sigirides I think you might be being a little silly here. The cyclist very clearly should have waited for the oncoming car to pass before overtaking the parked car. They intentionally put themselves in the position where they would rightly have been pissed off if it was the other way around and the car was pulling out from behind the parked car. If this was the other way around of course the driver could be in trouble in precisely the same way the cyclist was here. They very clearly treat intentional close passing by drivers differently to unintentional ones ie. when the two parties are coming towards each other with no decisions other than speed and whether you are trying to leave space for each other. Yes it pisses me off when some twat rides at me on a barely single track country road at speed and I am forced into a tiny patch of road but I know they won't give a crap about those sort of head on closes passes and will consider it unavoidable. Its shit but its how they see these interactions. They don't take kindly to cyclists or drivers pulling out unnecessarily to pass obstacles when it causes a close pass. No it perhaps doesn't make sense but in plenty of cases, the close distance between driver and cyclist is unavoidable even if one party was to stop completely. Personally I would love to see the rules changed to "encourage" drivers to reduce their speed considerably if they have to pass a cyclist within 1.5m. I still think its very dangerous and a massive blind spot in the rules. The issue would then be determining speed from a video and they seem to struggle enough with the concept that a 2m wide car that passes you entirely on your side of the road would require a 4m+ wide road to be able to do that legally.

I went away for a bit. While I was away it seems we got: * post editing back - yay! * Nigel back - boo!