Cyclists on pavement

[Rentergob89]

So this week a lady has been riding her bike on the pavement whilst children and their parents are attempting to walk in the opposite direction. She does not stop for anyone and yesterday had knocked a small child over grumbled something and carried on riding her bike on the pavement. Today I could see her coming towards me so I stopped where I was and refused to move for her. She stopped and said I was an inconvenience and I should move my fat a### out the way. I replied " you should not be riding your bike on the pavement you should be in the road" she then rode off swearing and shoving her two fingers up at me. Charming!! Two other mothers witnessed this and said thank you to me for saying something another however said I was in the wrong for not moving out of the way for her.
The pavement gets really busy after school as its the only way children and parents can walk to either their cars or the bus stop. All I am concerned about is the safety of the children but she seems to only care about herself. Was I in the wrong??

Honestly, it's very simple.

If you can't manage to, or are too scared to, cycle on the road, don't cycle!

Yy walter

Witchy as I said further up the thread I would only make an exception to the 'no cycling on the pavement' rule for young children. As soon as they are old enough and responsible enough I would expect them to be taught how to cycle safely on the road, which actually is not as difficult as it seems.
For any one else I would agree with Waltermitty in that if you are unable to manage cycling on the road then either don't cycle or stick to cycle paths.

Young children cycling on the pavement are even more of a pita than the adults

They never look where they're going.

We're on the same page then Mumski.

Yeh walter, that's it exactly

What sort of a society are we if we can't tolerate young children whilst they are learning to do something new.

It may be a pita but we could say that about all sorts of things that kids do

Ivykate maybe you could come and stand outside my DC's school with your mobile phone and then you will have plenty of videos of children aged between 3 and 10 to take to the police. I'm sure they would be very interested.

Though I do agree that often you do see cyclists on the pavement who are scared to be on the road who just shouldn't be cycling until they are confident enough to go on the road.

The thing is Mumski - I can't really get worked up about little kids on bikes if there are cycling in a controlled way and are being super supervised - BUT, there are actually loads of places kids can learn to ride their bikes, that would be safer for them. I don't let my 6 year old ride on pavements - he would potentially go too fast and if he encountered a pedestrian he would probably swerve too suddenly and end up on the road. Instead he is learning on the transpath, our local park (has a separate cycling area), and much quieter roads (cul de sac etc).

But I do love seeing kids cycling to school.

Witchy, I think we are

Couldn't agree more whatsthecomingoverthehill. We have an excellent bike ability scheme which is run in most schools these days to teach kids how to cylcle safely on roads. My DS gave me a few tips after completing the course.
There is also more and more off road options for people to gain confidence in their own cycling ability.
If more people were confident on the road and knew/followed the rules of the road there would be more respect between cyclists and motorists.

Agreed Witchy and this is where the problem is. If we want kids to cycle to school then you need to make a judgement about the safety of the child on the road vs the risk to a pedestrian.

DS1 has done Bikeabity twice and is perfectly fine to cycle to school on the road whereas DS2 is not and I still allow him to go on the pavement but would be next to him (on the road) to make sure he is considerate.

Kids can learn to do something new in parks or quiet roads.

It's not appropriate for young children to cycle down pavements which are for pedestrians.

Mumydki why would I report children that are not accountable for their actions,
Section 72 of the highway act made it a criminal offence to lead or drive any carriage on the
Footway orcause way

This of course would technically include prams if you want to be a total pedantic

But children under 16 can't be issued with a penalty fine so there isn't anything the police can actually do.

If people are so intended with the offenders then film them, it's what cyclist do and in the West Midlands police are taking action with film evidence, nothing to stop pedestrians doing the same.

If you want to include children in that go right ahead, but as another poster said I love seeing children cycle to school and rarely see children cycling dangerously on the pavement.

This is how you get children cycling in a major city centre

People are trying to stop the next one as they reckon it causes pollution.

What are their reasons for suggesting it causes pollution ivy ??

And the problem with filming dangerous cyclists is that there is no way really for the police to identify them. So filming them is futile and even if the police do by some miracle catch a dangerous cyclist, the fines they get are laughable.

Exactly Ivykate I agree entirely. Not sure what point you are trying to make.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2263354/Cyclist-knocked-down-and-killed-teenage-girl-court-hears.html

For example, this guy admitted to hitting a teenager with his bike and admitted that he could have avoided her but he warned her to move and assumed she would, but as she was on the pavement she didn't think she had to. He killed her. He got fined £2200!

If this is the punishment for someone who kills a young person, are the police even going to bother pursuing those who jump lights, cycle on pavements etc when no one is hurt? I don't think so.

Mumydki

People keep complaining about cyclists bad behaviours, well film it and report it then. Cyclists use head cam and can prove the bad behaviour.

If pedestrians want to be taken seriously about all the bad behaviour then film it and shoe it.

I'm a pedestrian and just don't encounter bad behaviour by cyclists. I do though encounter bad behaviour

Like this
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/readers-react-school-run-parking-11353151
And so do others and it can be photographed to prove it.

So if you see all these boards of badly behaved cyclists then film it, report it upload it for everyone to see.

But make sure they are actually behaving badly first, not wearing a helmet isn't illegal and riding two abreast is fine according to the highway code

Whitchywoo, how many cyclists did you find that had killed pedestrians since your article in 2008?

Yes something can be done about shitty parking/ driving when filmed because cars owners can be identified . Pedestrians filming cyclists is futile Ivy

Cyclists on the pavement are the one thing that make me see red mist. We have cycle lanes everywhere yet some people think they have a right to break the law. I nearly always challenge.

Ivy perhaps you should read my post again. My point was about the lack of punishments that are given to dangerous cyclists and the very lenient nature of them - not about the number of incidents. The fact that this happened a while ago does not alter the fact people have gone to jail for stealing a bottle of water but this man got a paltry fine for killing someone.

Besides, is one 17 year old dead girl not enough for you Ivy? FFS!