Driving 3 miles to beach and fined £200

[nancybotwinbloom]

A friend of a friend drove three miles to her nearest beach and took her newborn for a walk in the pram.

She was surrounded by police and fined £200.

This was today.

I think it must of been scary to be surrounded by police with the pram and the newborn. Surely only one of them needed to speak to her. Not mob handed. Or are they all unreasonable?

Is it unreasonable to drive three miles for a walk? I'm at a point now I can't work out what's local and what's not. I don't think she was in the wrong in all honesty.

Or is it that she drove there that it's not local enough.

I walk nearly three miles to the park with the dog and walk through the park and walk back most days and I don't think I am unreasonable?

What is local classed as these days?

that is local

Yet again, irrelevant

The police were stopping visitors by our beach if they were from the neighbouring city - the problem is its small with limited parking and can only deal with my towns residents not an extra 20,000 plus who saw the sun and decided to head over here. Basically if you can't walk to the beach (if you aren't disabled) don't come is the message (no issues with people driving a mile down the hill if they physically can't walk up the hill.)

Whether 3 miles is reasonable is down to local geography, it's certainly not reasonable for people to drive from the city edge around 3 miles away, across a couple of miles of open countryside to our town.

Whether 3 miles is reasonable is down to local geography, it's certainly not reasonable for people to drive from the city edge around 3 miles away, across a couple of miles of open countryside to our town.

If you’re in England it makes no difference whether anyone thinks 3 miles is reasonable or not. If you’re travelling to exercise you’re acting completely legally.

There is no food shop within five miles of my house. I cant stay local and alive.

I only walk around my village which is beautiful and a SSI but its pissing me off now. I'd rather get obese after doing the same thing again and again.

If your friend of a friend had an accident in her car while travelling those three miles, and needed a special care bad in hospital, and there wasn't one due to Covid patients then she might wish she'd walked locally instead.

@waitrosetrollydolly

If your friend of a friend had an accident in her car while travelling those three miles, and needed a special care bad in hospital, and there wasn't one due to Covid patients then she might wish she'd walked locally instead.

She might, @waitrosetrollydolly. That doesn’t, however, change the fact that what she did is perfectly legal, and the police have no powers to enforce – as has been explained many, many, many times in this thread.

6 cops? That’s an entire team round my way. I’m going to say that’s possibly not correct! A whole team would not be able to be out covid policing. They have shit like actual crimes to deal with.

Never sure on friend of a friend stories as 3 miles ends up being 30
But if true then can't really enforce that and you would take story to the press

[quote Chiccie]@Imapotato yes exactly. You should always try and stay in your local area. It says nothing about only walking and not driving. It doesn’t stipulate that if you live in a village that counts as local area. I live in a small village on the very edge of a big town that is more than 3 miles from end to end. My postcode is the same and all parks etc are within the town. There’s no doubt that counts as my local area. The guidance is just that. Guidance. It states clearly that a beach is an acceptable place to exercise. By their very nature, beaches are places that people have to travel to get to. It’s therefore reasonable to say that somebody who lives 3 miles from a beach is perfectly entitled to exercise there within the remit of the guidance and I would argue that a court of law would find it so. Common sense.[/quote]
I mean, it does say same village, town or part of city. It’s fairly clear. Obviously if you live in a village that doesn’t have a supermarket then you’ll have to travel outside of your local area to buy food, but exercise could be done just waking/running around your local area.

So you could travel 3 miles to the beach and that would be fine, even if you drive, so long as it was still your town. If it’s the next town, then you shouldn’t really, even if it’s 3 miles or less.

Places like the beach will have lots of people visiting and claiming to be local, and in normal circumstances would be classed as local, but unfortunately may live in a town/village a few miles away. So in these circumstances they should not really be visiting. Otherwise before you know it the world and his wife will be there.

It’s crap, but if we can all stop stretching the rules as far as they can go and just try to stop spreading Covid for a bit then the world will go back to normal much quicker.

I also find it fairly unbelievable that there were 6 police officers, most forces don’t have that number of officers to have in one place at the same time.

Do we have 6 poilce officers in one area in uk ?

It’s crap, but if we can all stop stretching the rules as far as they can go and just try to stop spreading Covid for a bit then the world will go back to normal much quicker.

What rules? Either you’re breaking the law or you’re not.

@Elai1978

It’s crap, but if we can all stop stretching the rules as far as they can go and just try to stop spreading Covid for a bit then the world will go back to normal much quicker.

What rules? Either you’re breaking the law or you’re not.

I’m just going by what the government website quite clearly states. I don’t know why people have such a problem with it, it’s not forever.

As to whether it’s the law or just government advice, I’m not 100% sure. It says you should stay local and then defines local. I would expect t police to know whether or not she was breaking the law though. And whether the law or not, it would have been against government advice.

I just want this whole situation over, I’m sick of it, but so many people seem to think the rules don’t apply to them, the more people do it, the longer we will be stuck in the crappy situation.

@Elai1978

It's really not safe and the line had to be drawn somewhere.

There’s no line to be drawn anywhere!

So we should all just go where we want and do what we want?

Driving to do the walking shouldnt be allowed imo

As to whether it’s the law or just government advice, I’m not 100% sure.
It has been repeatedly pointed out that there is nothing in Law (in England) about where you go for exercise, how often you go, or for how long.
The Government's advice or guidelines are just that, they are not enforceable. If they wish to make them so, then they could change the Law to do that.

If your friend of a friend had an accident in her car while travelling those three miles, and needed a special care bad in hospital, and there wasn't one due to Covid patients then she might wish she'd walked locally instead.

You could also say that anyone walking could have an HGV crash into them while walking round their local area. It's an equally likely scenario

i just want this whole situation over, I’m sick of it, but so many people seem to think the rules don’t apply to them, the more people do it, the longer we will be stuck in the crappy situation.

But if this situation is true the person did adhere to the rules so no thinking that the rules didnt apply to.her at all.

The whole problem is that the rules are not clear. If they wanted people to stay within 3 miles they should have stated 3 miles. But how do you actually define "local". Its not a quantifiable measure

Yeah, the comment about being surrounded by 6 police is obviously not true, so perhaps the entire story is also massively exaggerated...

I would appeal it and complain . That's terrible and upsetting for the lady to be out with her child and confronted like that

I find it hilarious that a wife of a copper is now a spokesperson for how police handle their self defined extension of powers. The desperate search for the absolute truth in the OP is also hilarious. People are then projecting their own bias in to extrapolate a new truth as to what happened. My take is that police, again, need to remind themselves of guidance vs law. Whether it happened this way or not, 2,4,6 police - whatever - in England, you can drive your car for exercise. People may feel it should be different but it isn't.

So we should all just go where we want and do what we want?

That’s a completely different question of course, just because something’s legal doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

I've not read the thread, but I hope she does pursue this to get her money back!!. She will 100 % get it back.
I take this pandemic extremely seriously, we've not actually been out for a while, shop on line, I've dived into shops briefly for one or two items.

Infact for the first time this weekend I'm hoping to get us all out for a walk, 5 miles away where I know we can socially distance.

I think this is heavy handed and cruel.
Hope she makes sure she gets her money back and if all places I think the coast will be one of the safest places to walk with sea breezes!!

I also can’t believe people just read something and instantly believe it but there we go.

Is there a news report to back this story up? I thought the police had stopped this nonsense.

You are allowed to drive for exercise, and 3 miles is local within any reasonable interpretation of the guidance (which isn't law anyway).

If this indeed happened, I presume the friend refused to pay and said see you in court.

@Elai1978

So we should all just go where we want and do what we want?

That’s a completely different question of course, just because something’s legal doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Only appears to apply if you are driving for exercise, but not to 16 year olds having sex. It may be legal (well maybe not currently but you know what I mean), it's 100% not advisable.