Nick Finnigan wrote in
:

Martin Underwood wrote:
Helen Deborah Vecht wrote in
:


"Richard J." typed

Anyway, if you wheel your bicycle past the stop line on the
pavement, surely you count as a pedestrian then?


(Carrying my bike over a stop line on the carriageway, remounting
immediately after, and cycling across the T junction is quicker).

Not AIUI. If you CROSS the road, you are a pedestrian, if you move
with the traffic flow, either on the footway or the carriageway, you
should not pass the stop line.


Even though the stop line only extends across the road and not the
pavement alongside it?

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20023113.htm#36
'vehicular traffic shall not proceed beyond the stop line'

It irrelevent whether crossing traffic is pedestrian or not.
The stop line usually goes across only the left hand side of the
carriageway, but nobody imagines that using the right hand side of the
road gets you past a red light legally. Cyclists can cycle past a stop
line if there is a marked cycle lane which is not covered by it.

Ah, so the absence of a stop line on a cycle lane in the road means it's OK
to go ahead, but the absence of a stop line on a pavement that is separated
from the road by a kerb still means you have to stop? Perverse.


'Vehicular traffic' is not explained, but I would guess that a
wheeled cycle is counted as a pedestrian controlled vehicle, so is
vehiclar traffic, as is a shopping trolley. Pedestrians carrying
luggage should be OK, even if The Luggage has wheels.

This just get better and better! I've visions of little old ladies (and
men - must be PC these days!) with their shopping trolleys stopped on the
pavement at the imaginery stop line at traffic lights, waiting until the
lights turn green and they can set off again. ;-)

I'm not sure whether a shopping trolley could be classed as a vehicle, on
the grounds that it's not usually used for carrying people on/in it - unless
you count the obligatory pekinese that the LOL/LOM always seems to carry in
their trolley!


The offence (if any) would come under RTA section 36,
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988...n_2.htm#mdiv36
which refers to the person 'driving or propelling a vehicle', no
mention of riding, so again it looks like a shopping trolley being
pushed along the footway need to stop at red lights (or be carried
over the line).
Strange that this should be prohibited when AIUI cyclists can't be
prosecuted (or have their car licence endorsed) if they exceed a
speed limit on the road -

Speed limits are specified as only applying to motor vehicles
(except some Royal Parks).

Exactly. I *know* that speed limits only apply to motor vehicles and not to
bicycles (and skateboards and roller skates etc etc). My question was "why"?
You'd think that speed limit and drink-driving laws, and the requirement for
3rd-party insurance, would apply equally to *all* vehicles (motor or
otherwise).

In my book, the law should be a servant not a master: society should decide
which acts it wants to permit and which it doesn't, and then frame its laws
accordingly. Making perverse laws and then expecting people blindly and
unthinkingly to keep them in all circumstances without applying common sense
is to put the cart before the horse. If a law cannot be justified, it should
be repealed. I'd love to see the so-called justification for making people
who are pushing bikes or shopping trolleys stop at traffic lights when they
are on the pavement!

Now if they want to extend the highway code to apply the same
rules-of-the-road on pavements for pedestrians as on roads for vehicles,
then I'm all in favour of that: people emerging from shops ("side roads")
should wait for people on the pavement to go past instead of barging in
front of them; people should walk on the left-hand side of the pavement
(rather than walking in a line abreast, forcing oncoming people to step into
the road). I'm only being half-humourous he walking along the average
high street requires more "emergency stops" in half an hour than you'd
require in a lifetime of driving.

When I was at the Tram Museum at Crich (Derbyshire) the other year, I
noticed that there were serious proposals in the early 1900s to bring in
laws requiring people to walk on the left hand side of any pavement so the
people closer to the kerb would always be facing the oncoming traffic -
especially electric trams which were so much quieter than noisy motor cars.
Shame that one never made it onto the statue book ;-)