To shout at these cyclists on the pavement?!!

[LeftMyRidingCropInTheMortuary]

I travel between 2 different places for work so AIBU about either...?

City A: very busy tourist destination in UK. Cyclists riding on pavement amongst crowds of tourists (many look foreign themselves if this is relevant? Diff rules?). One nearly hit me. I yelled at her, she apologised. OK. Made me a bit wary though.

Town B: Quiet, long, straight, wide pavements. Teenagers on BMXs, they pass a wee bit close for comfort. One gave me lip when I asked her to move onto the road saying "it's legal for BMXs to ride on the pavement".

FYI: none of them have been wearing helmets either?!

Thoughts please.
Thanks in advance.

Now starting a thread about car drivers....I'm grumpy today!!!

tusker read my post. Where do I say two wrongs make a right or that it's something I do myself? Did 'nobody should be speeding on pavements it's stupid and selfish' give you the impression I approved?
However I bet in the vast majority of cases a cyclist is on the pavement it's to avoid knobhead drivers

No hedgehog not agree/disagree- there are Talk Guidelines and boasting of violence and defending it isn't consistent with them.

Probably not, CoolWheels! But interesting to read that the guidelines are more flexible than people think.

It's fairly typical of cyclists to act like entitled arses in my experience. "If car drivers didn't drive so fast we woulndt need to ride on a pavement.., blah blah blah". Stop trying to blame others for your poor cycling skills. If you need to (illegally) ride your bike on a pavement because you are too cowardly to go on the roads then you shouldnt even be on a bike in the first place IMO. Just because you are a coward doesn't give you the right to endanger the safety of pedestrians, and there are indicidents of pedestrians being quite seriously injured and indeed killed by cyclists.

And whilst I don't condone hedgehogs actions, maybe that entitled arse of a cyclist will think twice about riding on a pavement in future?

I doubt it. Maybe if hedgehog had stopped and talked to the cyclist. As it was, the cyclist probably thought " what an unpleasant person" and went on.

I'm a cyclist (as well as a driver and a pedestrian) and sometimes use shared pavements - equally annoying if a pedestrian walks on the cycling bit or when you are the pedestrian and a cyclist is on that bit.

But generally speaking, it's not a big deal to say that cyclists on pavements that aren't partly cycle paths are being pretty antisocial and dangerous. The ones I see are invariably teenage boys shouting to one another, not cyclists hounded off the road by drivers.

I am a cyclist, and see no issue with yelling at cyclists on pavements, or jumping red lights.
People saying that it is just 'a minor misdemeanor' - do you think the same about people talking on mobiles while driving? Or speeding on residential streets?

I cycle considerately, I'm about the most pleasant and courteous person you could hope to meet, work with, have as a friend or as a passer-by. I go out of my way in life to be helpful and kind. In that moment, frightened, I reacted in that way. As many people would.

Lurkedforever1 come on, I'm sure you're more intelligent than that. "Perhaps if people stopped driving like dangerous knobs, cyclists wouldn't use pavements sensibly or otherwise." VERY clearly blames drivers for cyclists being on the pavement.

Cyclists whizzing at speed on the pavement are the bane of my life. If you're too scared to cycle on the road get off your bike and walk.

If you are over the age of 10 and cycling, it should be on the road, in a bike lane or on a shared use path (with due consideration). End of story.

In a tourist town, it can be a bit confusing for those who come from cultures where cycling on pavements is the norm, but no excuses for Brits.

The BMX kids were just being little pricks.

If you aren't confident with cycling - most councils offer cycle training courses for free, something like that might help.

yes, I ride a pavement distance each day to avoid a really treacherous bit of A-road - so yep from this sample survey of one, Lurked is correct with a 100% accuracy that riders go on pavements to avoid bell-end car drivers.

To all the people making comments about "cowardly" cyclists avoiding the roads - have you actually ever ridden a bike in a city centre with double decker buses and taxis and trucks passing within inches of you and idiots cutting you up to turn left, or indeed along a 50mph road where every passing vehicle makes you painfully aware how little protection a styrofoam hat would be if they clip you with their wing mirror?

I don't ride on the pavement except where it's shared use, but bloody hell the roads aren't always a comfortable place to be. You can ride with all the positive positioning you like and be assertive, only pass on the right and avoid hugging the kerb, but sometimes drivers will be careless and sometimes drivers will be twats and it doesn't matter how "skilled" and confident you are you'll be the one with broken bones or worse, they'll just have a dent in their bonnet or bits of your bike stuck up between their tyres and mudflaps.

givemushy, once again, why should pedestrians be endangered or scared because the roads are an uncomfortable place for cyclists? I don't doubt that many drivers are aggressive morons but that doesn't mean that its ok to start whizzing around on the pavement (I know you said that you don't personally)

ffs, no-one is defending endangering peds on pavements.

I did say though further up that there will be an abstinence of people reading that it can be quite legal to ride on pavements - and on cue folks still roll up with the simpleton's slogan "it's illegal!". No it fucking isn't. RTFT.

If everyone RTFT, what would we spend our time discussing??

Abstinence?!
Do you mean "abundance"?

Lottapianos - no one should be put in danger by the actions of others, and I don't think anyone is condoning cyclists whizzing around and knocking over little old ladies, the frail and partially sighted. But the home office guidance specifically recognises that cyclists who turn to considerately cycling on the pavement due to fear of traffic shouldn't be penalised, so it seems harsh that some people tar all pavement cyclists with the "cowardly" anti-social arsehole brush.

There are a fair few anti-social arseholes around on bikes, mind, but then there are plenty behind the wheels of cars and vans and buses too...

no, abstinence i.e people not knowing, and refusing to know, the laws on pavement riding.

offski - got some peds on pavements to scare.

not really.

Abstinence means desisting from something - usually food or sex!!!!

You are wrong, coolwheelspan

From www.gov.uk:

64
You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement.
Laws HA 1835 sect 72 & R(S)A 1984, sect 129

Again though sallyingforth, the home office have issued the police with guidance that says action shouldn't always be taken against cyclists on the pavement unless they're behaving inconsiderately:

"I should stress that the issue is about inconsiderate cycling on the pavements. The new provisions are not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other road users when doing so. Chief officers recognise that the fixed penalty needs to be used with a considerable degree of discretion and it cannot be issued to anyone under the age of 16." Read more here.

And we must agree to disagree.

Nope: you were just plain wrong Hedgehog, no two ways about it.

And I speak as one who hates the use of bikes on pavements with a PASSION (but one I keep under control;!)

To all the people making comments about "cowardly" cyclists avoiding the roads - have you actually ever ridden a bike in a city centre with double decker buses and taxis and trucks passing within inches of you and idiots cutting you up to turn left

Yup, 6 miles twice a day, 4 or 5 days a week for the last 5 years, through central London, other than when I was pregnant.

In that time, I've seen probably 20 people falling off their bikes and 3 accidents that required ambulances to be called, and arrived at the scene of a fatality after the event.
The fatality was because a cyclist squeezed them along the inside of a lorry turning left and plonked themselves right in the blind spot.

Of the other other falls and accidents, the only one caused by a driver was when someone opened their door onto the road without looking. I've seen more accidents caused by cyclists jumping red lights and then slamming on their brakes and skidding over than anything else. This morning, a girl on a sit-up-and-beg bike had a very near miss with a taxi while jumping a red light near Victoria. She was also wearing headphones. When the taxi driver remonstrated with her, she hopped up onto the pavement and cycled off.