to think that adult cyclists who ride on pavements are selfish & irresponsible?

[Rafi]

I can understand it if there's a child on the back. But normally it seems to be some selfish idiot who thinks they can do what they want & never mind the pedestrians...

AIBU?

Is the highway code law now?

The laws quoted are: HA 1835 sect 72 & R(S)A 1984, sect 129

I'm a cyclist.

I never cycle on the pavement. If I'm taking a pavement shortcut I get off and walk.

Toodled along the local canal path the other night and was appalled at the rude way my fellow cyclists were handling the large volume of pedestrian traffic. I won't go along there again as tbh I'd rather risk the road (and the hills - the main reason i was on the canal) than piss off so many pedestrians.

I will however get lippy with people who meander (or even worse allow their kids) to meander aimlessly into the cycle section of our local shared cycle/ pedestrian paths. I came across a woman recently who had actually stopped to allow her toddler to ply and left her buggy (with sleeping baby) parked in the middle of the bike section (it's clearly marked).

I was so worried about her baby that I actually stopped and got off my bike to explain to her (she was a tourist) that she needed to move her buggy either onto the grass( where her older child was playing) or onto the pedestrian bit of the path. She refused. I have a friend who was serioulsy injured (head injry) as a pedestrian (head injury) on the same section of path after a pedestrian vs. bike accident so left feeling very unsettled.

The path is heavily used and because of local geography cycle traffic there tends to be quite fast. So it was basically equivalent to leaving your child strapped in their buggy in the middle of an A road.

To all those who cycle their kids to school on the pavement - either get a tag along or put the kids in a trailer. There are adult cycling classes if you yourself don't feel up to going on the road. cyclists on pavements (except the odd remote pavement where there are bugger all pedestrians) give us all a bad name.

bloss, I don't glare at cyclists who are on the pavement and who are driving in a polite and courteous way. nor do i make nasty comments to them. But I admit I'm still pissed off with them for blatantly disregarding the law and thinking it doesn't seem to apply to them. So just because people don't say anything to you, doesn't necessarily agree with the way you are riding your bike.

I was cycling back from town today along the Bristol & Bath cycle path. Under one of the bridges there is a designated raised pavement for pedestrians while the other half of the path is for cyclists to keep the two groups apart on the quite steep slopes. There was a gang of a dozen or so teenage boys dawdling along the cyclist side which made me and a few other cyclists pull up suddenly, and one man fell off his bike quite heavily. The dear boys (bar one) took great delight from this and stood there laughing at the poor guy on the floor.

I know this is just the same as all the other anecdotal "speed freak cyclist nearly knocked me down" stories posted so far, but I just felt like trying to balance things out slightly.

sorry,that should have read:
So just because people don't say anything to you, it doesn't necessarily mean they agree with the way you are riding your bike

I think that the no. of cyclists that admit to using pavements at times is a reflection of the fact that road use needs to be made safer for cyclists, as other posters have also said. I do not think that this excuses the minority of cyclists whose behaviour jeopardises others. Nor do I think others have tried to argue this. I do not believe that my confidence being knocked by a potentially life-threatening accident where I was the innocent party makes me a 'wuss' who doesn't deserve the use of a bike. I did not state that I did not use the road, I do. I think some of the responses on this thread display unwarranted aggression that is disproportionate to the points being made.

Gasman I fail to see that leaving your buggy on a cyclepath is particularly irresponsible or dangerous, ditto pedestrians daring to step foot on the cyclepath area of a footpath! It is nothing like leaving a buggy on an A road fgs! As for "getting lippy" with the poor "offenders", I would find this to be officious and rude and I don't respond very well to rudeness/bike rage.

As for kids in trailers and tag alongs, I have seen a lot of accidents with the tags and have recently also seen kids tipped out into the road from a trailer in normal use.

I too have been knocked off my bike.

I still don't cycle on the pavement but it did take a LOT of effort and a break from cycling before I felt able to get back on my bike.

Therefore I'm afraid this argument doesn't really wash with me. It's illegal to cycle on the pavement. Therefore we shouldn't!

YANBU. I hate it. Cyclists over about the age of 10 get very Paddington-like Hard Stares.

Dismounted cyclists pushing their bikes are ok.

I wasn't trying to use it as an argument in favour of cycling on pavements but if we are truly interested in eliminating cyclists from using pavements shouldn't we examine some of the reasons why they do & look at introducing more cycle paths, penalising drivers who are reckless etc... ?

80% of pavements are shared where I live and normally there are not seperate lanes for bikes, neither are the pavements very wide. Pedestrians now assume bikes are allowed on all pavements because it's mostly true in these parts.

When I was young an adult could expect a large amount of abuse for riding on these pavements so things have really changed here - perhaps this is untypical though from the sound of things

Then we could label any remaining rogue cyclists as the villains they really are & have them heavily penalised too?

Podrick

To my mind leaving your buggy parked in the middle of a lane clearly marked with a bike symbol which just happens to be adjacent to a footpath (ie is road-like)is akin to leaving your child in the road. Biks can kill just as effectively as cars.

Add in the fact that the cycle lane in question is heavily used by cyclists who are travelling fast (as it was at the bottom of a hill and slightly round a bend so was difficult to see the obstruction until you were very close) and I believe that my analogy to an A-road is a fair one.

On this occasion I took the time to stop and explain to the mother (who wasn't local) why it seemed dangerous. Another female cyclist also stopped so I don't think it was 'bike rage'.

Normally my 'lippiness' extends to binging my bell at people if they stray into the cycle path. Perhaps lippy was the wrong word.

The rules work both ways. I'll keep off the pavement and I expect pedestrians to keep out of the cycle lanes. In this area all the shared paths have clearly demarcated pedestrian/ cycle lanes unlike in other areas I've been where I can easily imagine confusion between the two user groups.

This is no different to the way things work with cars - they keep off the pavement and most pedestrians would choose not to walk down the middle of the road and if they did they could anticipate some angst from drivers.

19fran76. I agree it is sad that so many people don't feel safe cycling on the road but there are ways to address this - lobbying councillors/ MPs/ planning bods and not just ignoring the law. That is the way to anarchy.

Sorry that should be 'bikes can kill'.

gasman I agree that the rules need to work both ways. Given the animosity shown towards cyclists generally achieving it could be tricky. Certainly lobbying politicians etc... is a good starting point. Hmmm.... I'm off to ponder to what extent I possess anarchic tendencies & whether I consider this desirable

Join CTC... they lobby for you!

And you also get 'free' 3rd party insurance . Useful if you were ever to hit someone's car and damage their wing mirror .

Cyclists flout the rules and then whinge that enough isn't done for them.

On a daily basis i see:

cyclists on pavements
cyclists jumping lights
cyclists using zebra crossings to get across the road and not dismounting.

personally, as a cyclist, I don't think kids should be allowed by their parents to ride on pavements either. Make them push their bike until they get to a cycle path or park IMO. Why encourage bad habits 'just because they are children' the sooner they get used to the road the better. Infact if there were more kids riding sensibly on the roads then stupid idiotic motorists would be forced to slow down and shut up!

SOME Cyclists flout the rules and then whinge that enough isn't done for them.

On a daily basis i see:

cyclists on pavements
cyclists jumping lights
cyclists using zebra crossings to get across the road and not dismounting

I've corrected it for you Nancy

I was walking the dog the other evening and a man whizzed past so fast on his bike that he nearly took my dogs head off. He was clearly of the opinion that he wasn't slowing down for anybody or anything. My dd was nearly in tears and it was a very upsetting experience.