Stopped by the Police, did I break the law?

Can this end? The cyclist is a nobber.

Northernbike wrote:

anyone who arrives at a red light and gets off and runs through it it is definitely guilty of the crime of taking the piss

Hear, hear.

Fundamentally I refer the honourable gentleman to Rule One: Don't be a dick.

Quince wrote:

If the green man was showing, then you didn't 'run a red light', you 'walked a green man'. Which I believe is the entire point of having a 'green man' to begin with.

The main gripe people seem to have with you is that you stuck out a bit; you did something abnormal. I think the largest risk you can pose in walking across a green man is walking into another pedestrian also walking across a green man. So it wasn't illegal, and it wasn't dangerous. It was just unusual. And now people seem to hate you for it.

The vitriol to be getting for 'walking across a green man' reads a bit like a Daily Mail comment section on 'riding a bicycle' in general. It doesn't matter if it's legal, it's not 'normal' and thus you deserve to die for it. "Out of the gene pool for you, buddy".

To my mind you've got as much right to be 'removed from the gene pool' as any other poor sod who gets down whilst crossing a green man.

Nah. It's just not really within the spirit of safe and responsible road use. And it's not hate, it's disapproval.

Curto80 wrote:

Quince wrote:

If the green man was showing, then you didn't 'run a red light', you 'walked a green man'. Which I believe is the entire point of having a 'green man' to begin with.

The main gripe people seem to have with you is that you stuck out a bit; you did something abnormal. I think the largest risk you can pose in walking across a green man is walking into another pedestrian also walking across a green man. So it wasn't illegal, and it wasn't dangerous. It was just unusual. And now people seem to hate you for it.

The vitriol to be getting for 'walking across a green man' reads a bit like a Daily Mail comment section on 'riding a bicycle' in general. It doesn't matter if it's legal, it's not 'normal' and thus you deserve to die for it. "Out of the gene pool for you, buddy".

To my mind you've got as much right to be 'removed from the gene pool' as any other poor sod who gets down whilst crossing a green man.

Nah. It's just not really within the spirit of safe and responsible road use. And it's not hate, it's disapproval.

The timing did seem a little sketchy, and perhaps if you have to run, it would be better not to go at all, but I feel the OP has come under harsher fire than warranted by disapproval alone.

More generally, I'm just uncomfortable with the principle that 'I just need to act like a car, and everything will be alright'. In an actual car, I don't get ignored, punishment-passed, pulled out in front of, or generally marginalised in anywhere like the same way as on a bike. I can sympathise with the OP for not wanting to sit in front of a row of growling engines, ready for the Amber-Light-Drag-Race to start, hoping the person who's been staring at his back for the last minute has enough self-control not to send their machine roaring past, centimetres from their shoulder.

As you can probably guess by my impassioned defence, I have done similar things myself on an unused Green Men - albeit at smaller junctions - and have relished the chance just to put a space between me and the constant stream of noise and metal I've been focusing on for most of the ride. It's been kind of liberating to go, "no, y'know what, I'm not like you, I CAN become a pedestrian at will (and be no more dangerous than someone pushing a pram or trolley), and I'm bloody well going to make the most of it".

I just wish it weren't necessary... I've been watching Dutch cycling videos and reading angry cycle blogs (thanks, Bez) and gotten all indignant that this sort of scenario is so common place, and have also become progressively more bitter in the belief that, no matter how perfectly I adhere to the law, the law will neither protect me from an accident happening, nor defend me if it does.

I probably just shouldn't go on forums when I'm already a bit peed off. For one thing my sentences get all stupid and long.

Aimless rant over. Sorry.

Quince wrote:

The vitriol to be getting for 'walking across a green man' reads a bit like a Daily Mail comment section on 'riding a bicycle' in general. It doesn't matter if it's legal, it's not 'normal' and thus you deserve to die for it. "Out of the gene pool for you, buddy"..

Agreed. I don't see much wrong with the OP's actions. But I see a lot wrong with most of the responses he's been getting.

stumps wrote:

Basically you have broken the law because propelling a bike is also pushing it. As someone earlier pointed out it would take case law decision as to whether pushing it is included in "propelling it". At the moment it does.

Contrary to section 36(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, regulation 10 of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

I know there's a case that does establish that for a motorcycle, but for bicycles whenever it's been tested in court the verdict has always been that someone pushing a bike is a pedestrian.

However, the cases have been whilst using crossings. Yes, you can legally push a bike on any pedestrian surface, pavements, zebra crossings the lot, no need to carry, and that's all established in past rulings.

For what the OP did, which was running along the road, I'm not aware of any case that tests this for a bicycle. But given that it has been tested for a motorcycle I suspect it would follow that precedent. Push a bike on a pedestrian surface, you're a pedestrian pushing a bike. Push a bike on the road, you're propelling it.

A simpler suggestion, could the OP just not do it, because it's a bit of a dick thing to do. You can walk around a junction using the pedestrians crossings, and I've done that many times including in front of the Police. Running through the middle of the junction may not be illegal for a pedestrian, but it isn't something we want pedestrians to do and there's no reason why you should do it just because you're now a pedestrian with a bike.

There's also a very good chance that if a lot of cyclists did do it, it would quickly lead to a test case.

Chez_worldwide wrote:

I'll wager that the other road users/ pedestrians at that set of lights thought "what a bell-end". I did on watching it. Unfortunately, some of them will also have thought "all cyclists are bell-ends", and this is the crux of the matter in my opinion, regardless of the law. Next time they see a cyclist, they don't see a father/ mother/ friend/ colleague, just a bell-end.

I see motorists parked illegally blocking pavements, in mandatory cycle lanes, and on zig-zags outside schools, umpteen times a day. I frequently see them driving half on the pavement and half in a cycle lane in order to avoid stationary traffic, I see them speeding, I have them stop me crossing the road on a green man when they habitually jump the red after failing to catch the amber (itself illegal, but absolutely normal driver behaviour).

They creep into ASLs on red, and twice in the last couple of years, while cycling, had to get off the road to make room for a van driving the wrong way down a narrow one way road.

Rule-breaking by drivers is essentially universal. Do they stop doing it out of fear of being thought 'bell ends'? No. They worry about their own safety and being caught, or getting into trouble if they injure someone else, very little else.

The main reason not to do what the OP did is much as it is for motorists - their own safety - followed by the risk of being nabbed by a cop, and then the risk of causing an injury to a cyclist coming the other way on green. Motorists and their hypocritical judgements aren't really the point.

Dammit, I sound a bit petulant there, I know! I just find myself, as a pedestrian much more than as a cyclist, constantly grinding my teeth at the obliviousness of drivers to their own misbehaviour, even as they whinge about what cyclists do.

WiznaeMe wrote:

The OP contravened section 36 when he passed (or propelled his vehicle!) over the stop line.

Hard to say with a rear facing camera, but i don't think the OP was propelling his bike, he pushed it, therefore he is a pedestrian pushing a bike.

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

WiznaeMe wrote:

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

That's not how the law works. When the law uses an imprecise definition, it's left to the judicial system to establish the meaning through individual cases. That's commonly known as "case law".

See Crank v Brooks, McKerrell v Robertson above.

With new circumstance, a new case might lead to new case law, but for now it's legal because that's how it's been judged before in court. The Police themselves make mistakes all the time, for the simple reason that frontline officers are not lawyers.

Delete, duplicate post.

WiznaeMe wrote:

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

So if I walk along the pavement with my bike it's the same as cycling and therefore illegal? How should I get to the road from my frontdoor then?

HalfWheeler wrote:

WiznaeMe wrote:

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

So if I walk along the pavement with my bike it's the same as cycling and therefore illegal? How should I get to the road from my frontdoor then?

Carry it.

andyp wrote:

HalfWheeler wrote:

WiznaeMe wrote:

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

So if I walk along the pavement with my bike it's the same as cycling and therefore illegal? How should I get to the road from my frontdoor then?

Carry it.

Ah...I take it this is what you do? Are you never tempted to roll it along?

'Ah...I take it this is what you do? Are you never tempted to roll it along?'

This is not what I do. There is no pavement between my house and the road, so I ride.

andyp wrote:

'Ah...I take it this is what you do? Are you never tempted to roll it along?'

This is not what I do. There is no pavement between my house and the road, so I ride.

Hmm...

No front step, path or pavement? Front door then road?

Has a car ever crashed into your front wall? The noise of the traffic must be terrible, what with cars passing 18 inches from your front door.

HalfWheeler wrote:

andyp wrote:

'Ah...I take it this is what you do? Are you never tempted to roll it along?'

This is not what I do. There is no pavement between my house and the road, so I ride.

Hmm...

No front step, path or pavement? Front door then road?

Has a car ever crashed into your front wall? The noise of the traffic must be terrible, what with cars passing 18 inches from your front door.

I have a very long drive, opening straight onto a country lane. Couple of cars a day. No traffic noise. It's really very nice.

HalfWheeler wrote:

WiznaeMe wrote:

It's not that hard to say that the OP went through a red light. He tells us he did at the start of his post. Also that the green man was on.

Section 36 uses the word propel because it is easy to apply a general definition to that word. A cyclist on a road pushing a bike through a red light is breaking the law.

So if I walk along the pavement with my bike it's the same as cycling and therefore illegal? How should I get to the road from my frontdoor then?

How did 'on a road' in respect of a red light story move to a pavement. Different rules apply when cyclists are not on a road.

WiznaeMe wrote:

How did 'on a road' in respect of a red light story move to a pavement. Different rules apply when cyclists are not on a road.

A person on a bike is a cyclist, a person pushing a bike is a pedestrian, there are no laws about jaywalking etc. a person is allowed to walk on the road or on the pavement. The OP by pushing the bike is simply a pedestrian pushing a bike, traffic regs do not apply, is that so hard to understand?

mrmo wrote:

WiznaeMe wrote:

How did 'on a road' in respect of a red light story move to a pavement. Different rules apply when cyclists are not on a road.

A person on a bike is a cyclist, a person pushing a bike is a pedestrian, there are no laws about jaywalking etc. a person is allowed to walk on the road or on the pavement. The OP by pushing the bike is simply a pedestrian pushing a bike, traffic regs do not apply, is that so hard to understand?

Section 36 makes it an offence for "a person" (it doesn't matter if they are a pedestrian pushing a bike or a cyclist riding a bike, these are also obviously persons) to propel a vehicle otherwise than in compliance with a traffic signal.

Being a pedestrian is a difference without a distinction. The OP is a person; that is all that is required in these circumstances to complete the offence.

The 1971 case, from what I read of it, refers to a pedestrian propelling a vehicle across a crossing. If that person had then walked through a stop sign whilst continuing to propel their vehicle then that would be an offence and the logic of the appeal court does not contradict this in any way.

Please remember that the Road Traffic Act which applied at the time of this stated case was 1960 and that was amended the year after the zebra crossing decision, i.e 1972. It has since been updated in 1988, 1991, 1998, 2004, and now appears to be changed annually now to cope with all the new offences, however in all these iterations the legislators have remained content to leave this wording as 'person/propel/vehicle', for the simple reason that they believe the statute to be properly worded. I merely agree with the legislators.

HalfWheeler wrote:

So if I walk along the pavement with my bike it's the same as cycling and therefore illegal? How should I get to the road from my frontdoor then?

Normally I get from my front door to the road by going across rather than along the pavenment, the direct route. And I would start riding on the drive.

Looking forward to seeing drives punished for driving on the pavement to get to their drives by your logic. If you have no drive and must pass a line of parked cars, then obviosuly you would have to push the bike along.

Also I would think the intention of propel in the law is riding rather than pushing, however, from the video it seems the OP doesn't even stop, hence getting into a grey area. A cyclist who dismounts transfers the bike to the pavement and walks across the crossing would be much safer from scrutiny than someone who take the bike along the road through a red light at riding speed. might as well just take my feet of the pedals and scoot along.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Looking forward to seeing drives punished for driving on the pavement to get to their drives by your logic. If you have no drive and must pass a line of parked cars, then obviosuly you would have to push the bike along.

I believe part of the reason you need to apply to the council for a dropped kerb is to ensure the paperwork is in order and to prevent a crime taking place!