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20 mph sign (CC BY-ND 2.0 licensed by Tony Hall:Flickr)Southwark plans crackdown on 20+mph cyclists
The recent widespread introduction of 20mph speed limits in built up areas has been welcomed by road danger reduction campaigners, but it might turn out to be inconvenient for cyclists. That’s the prospect in the London borough of Southwark, where the council plans to include cyclists and horse-drawn buggies in the scope of the 20mph limit to be introduced at the end of July.
The Borough has long had an unusual relationship with cyclists, until recently refusing to even consider segregated cycling infrastructure because it believed mixing cyclists with motor traffic would help get drivers to slow down. Although new Southwark cabinet member for transport Mark Williams has said he will reverse this policy, Southwark did for a long time appear to consider cyclists to be mobile speed bumps.
Now, it seems, cyclists are to be included in an initiative intended to reduce the danger to pedestrians from being hit by heavy motor vehicles and not soft, fleshy bike riders.
According to the London SE1 website, the council plans to circumvent the usual exclusion of cyclists from speed limits (which in the Road Traffic Act apply only to motor vehicles) by referring simply to 'vehicles' in its proposed traffic management order.
Although it appears never to have been used foer the purpose of applying speed limits to cyclists, the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002 allows for speed limits to be imposed by local acts.
That ‘vehicles’ includes cycles is the same logic used by the Metropolitan Police to prosecute cyclists for exceeding the speed limit in Richmond Park. Carelessly framed traffic regulations refer in part to vehicles, although read as a whole they are clearly intended to apply only to motor vehicles.
As far as we are aware, nobody has ever mounted a serious legal challenge to a cycling speeding fine in Richmond Park. In a response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by road.cc last year, the Metropolitan Police said it was unable to find any record of legal advice indicating the limit applied to cyclists.
In Southwark, the council seems to think that cyclists are just as much of a hazard as motor vehicles (when they’re not using cyclists as unwitting moving-target traffic-calming, of course).
In a response to a member of the public who pointed out that it was unrealistic to expect unpowered vehicles to be able to accurately monitor their speed, the council's head of public realm Des Waters wrote: "The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 does indeed refer to 'motor vehicles' however since 1984 cycling as a modal share has grown substantially and the council receives a number of complaints from residents – particularly pedestrians – about the excessive speed of cyclists.
"Therefore it would be inappropriate to treat cyclists differently to any other form of traffic and effectively tie the hands of police when it comes to speed enforcement."
The Metropolitan Police seem quite happy to have their hands tied, though. In the Met’s formal objection to the plan, Catherine Linney of the force's traffic management unit said that enforcing the limit would be “unrealistic” and it should not be introduced unless the “look and feel” of the road made it obvious to drivers that the limit was 20mph. The Met apparently believes drivers are too dense to notice dirty great round signs with the number twenty on them.
Linney wrote: "Introducing speed limits where traffic speeds are too high places an unrealistic expectation to enforce on the Metropolitan Police.
"Whilst any reduction in speed is of benefit, the number of offenders will increase significantly in the roads which presently have average speeds of over 24 mph, placing an expectation on the Police for enforcement which we do not have the extra resources to fulfil.
"The Metropolitan Police objects to a 20 mph speed limit on any road in the London Borough of Southwark where the mean speed is above 24 mph.
"We also object to the implementation of the 20 mph limit where it is not obvious to the motorist through the look and feel of the road that the speed limit is 20 mph."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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81 comments
Who's gonna catch a 20mph cyclist anyway?
"The Metropolitan Police objects to a 20 mph speed limit on any road in the London Borough of Southwark where the mean speed is above 24 mph.
The MPS objects to a 20mph speed limit anywhere it is required.
FFS
I imagine this is a story getting blown slightly out of proportion. As a chap who rides his bike through Southwark a lot - I live in the glorious republic of SE15 and work in the slightly less glorious areas of Shoreditch, Soho and occasionally other parts of town - I guess I could potentially be affected by this new law rather a lot. Looking at my best Strava times, and as a pretty quick cyclist, very few of them exceed 32kph by much. That's not to say I don't go a lot faster at times - I do - but the average speed in town is pretty slow if you stop for lights. So I wonder how easy it would be to get caught out? Do radar guns work on a cyclist? Do speed cameras? CCTV is the main way to spot illegal drivers, but that doesn't work for a bike.
Maybe it's more of a warning thing. I'll keep an eye out for the rozzers, and report back if I see any change in attitude or enforcement.
We've had a 20mph limit in LB Camden for over a year. Is it enforced?
Of course not. The local Police commander admitted in Camden New Journal newspaper the Police does not have resources to enforce 20mph limit in Camden. If you cycle in Camden every day you'll see a lack of enforcement with prevalence of speeding, red light jumping, asl infringing, mobile texting motorists...as well as cyclists doing whatever the hell they like and pedestrians walking willy-nilly all over the place
I find it quite interersting that the police admit that they don't have resource to enforce a 20mph limit. This would suggest that enforcing a 30mph is less resouce-hungry but for the life of me I can't understand why this would be. To my mind they either have the resouce to enforce speed limits (regardless of the actual limit) or they don't. Why is 20 more difficult than 30?
Re unenforceable - Aren't the council allowed to install speed cameras? Are our politicians so in fear of Jeremy Clarkson and the tabloids?
Id be interested in how the Council can circumvent a Law thats on the Statute Books, with what based on a "What they please" basis. Not that im condoning speeding, just wondering how the council can do it. Be the same as deciding that although you need to be 18 to buy Alcohol they will decide that shops in their Borough could legally sell alcohol to 12 year olds.
Are you interested enough to read the comments that have already explained this.
I'm getting tied up in knots a bit thinking about this. If every locality is able to make their own road rules then any road user travelling from A to B needs to be aware of any specific local bylaws for any area that they travel though in addition to national laws. I understand that ignorance of the law is no excuse but it seems unreasonable to expect everyone in the land to be aware of specific local bylaws for any area that they might travel through.
Well in theory no, all byelaws are approved by the relevant government minister at the national level so as to avoid conflicts. But it does still happen, parking regulations are different in almost every single London borough, and that's something that motorists are always complaining about.
I am interested in knowing what Southwark will be doing to signpost this rule, as they absolutely will have to do something for it to be enforceable.
Every new by-law has to be thumbprinted by Eric Pickles in jam
Speed limits on motor vehicles were introduced in 1903 in order to protect members of the public from the harm that can be done by excessive speed made possible by engines. The speed limit in 1903 was set at 20mph; this limit was routinely breached by early motorists. In 1934 the speed limit in towns was set at 30mph.
Not then and not since have any laws been enacted to make cyclists adhere to the speeding regulations brought in for motorised vehicles.
Rule 124 of the currently in force Highway Code states speed limits on a tabulated panel, but there is no row that applies to bicycles.
“A person who drives a motor vehicle on a road at a speed exceeding a limit imposed by or under any enactment to which this section applies shall be guilty of an offence.” (Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, s.89.1)
Bicycles are not legally required to have speedometer, and no bicycle speedometer is in any event calibrated to meet any Department of Transport test.
Despite all of this, cyclists can always be charged under the laws relating to furious cycling, and councils have the power to put by-laws in place which affect only their own adopted roads eg. Bristol City Council has brought in across-the-board (or, as good as) 20mph speed limits within the city boundary, but their own website states that "Who does the 20mph speed limit apply to? All motorised vehicles."
I don't see how Southwark would enforce a speed limit on bicycles, any more than I see how the Royal Parks do... Does it just come down to a policeman saying, "Ooo - that seemed a bit fast!"?
Yes.
Well, thats just silly!
How do you think the traffic Police deal with most offences. Only a few can be measured, most tickets are the subjective view of the issuing officer.
So a police officer who likely never cycles, can look at someone cycling, think that they seemed to be going a bit fast, and issue them a ticket???
That's actually quite worrying. I'd just always assumed that speeding tickets were issued based on something a bit more measurable...
(Where is the poster called Stumps when you need them, for the cop's eye view on it?
)
Yup, as they can with motorists. How often is that a problem, really?
To make law enforcement work you need police officers who can be trusted to make the right call >99% of the time, for the <1% that's what appeals are for.
Really, this won't affect you unless you actually are riding like a tit.
I can't help but share bikebot's concerns somewhat. When a traffic officer makes a subjective assesment of someone's driving it's based on a great deal of training and experience, inevitably including the experience of being a normal motorist. When they make a subjective judgement about a cyclists behaviour the same may not be true. Many motorists beleive that any speed over about 15mph to 'too fast' for a cyclist regardless of what the speed limit is.
Yeah, I wasn't bothered by this when I thought it required some objective measure of speed (and I'm not a speedy cyclist anyway unless there's a steep downward hill of which there aren't many in Southwark), but police officers (and, dear God, will this be enforceable by PCSOs?) are often not the most knowledgeable/reliable when it comes to making judgement calls about cyclists.
I mean, what if this woman moves over here and becomes a PCSO, eh?
http://road.cc/content/news/124321-video-california-reserve-police-offic...
You mean brooksby, I'm mostly fine with the idea.
I'm a regular user of Richmond Park where the Police do enforce the speed limit against cyclists. I've never seen or heard of them fine a cyclist who wasn't exceeding the limit by a large margin. It's actually quite rare for them to issue a ticket at all, they usually just stop people and give a safety lecture.
Except that speeding offences need an instrument reading by an approved and calibrated instrument... there's no subjectivity, besides in who they manage to get a reading off of.
You're referencing the national legislation, and the wording they use to enforce speeding by "motor vehicles". As I understand it, the requirements for enforcement in Southwark may be entirely different as it's a byelaw.
But we have a solicitor in the room, and for the moment he's forgotten to bill anyone. I say we take advantage of him before he suddenly remembers.
Seems like a non-issue to me.
If you are in free-flowing traffic you wouldn't be able to exceed the speed limit by any substantial amount unless you were overtaking vehicles that were adhering to the limit - this seems reckless to me. In slow-moving traffic it's reasonable to filter but to do so at speeds over 20 mph again seems reckless.
The only time that a reasonable cyclist is likely to fall foul of rules like this would be if the road were clear and they were pushing on fairly hard. In this circumstance the point about danger to pedestrians does become valid. To say 'take it a bit easy, you're in the middle of town' is perfectly fair.
On the other hand, I'm very much opposed to local authorities making up local rules of this sort. Road signage should mean exactly the same thing wherever it is placed. The idea that the rules and parameters for using the roads can be different depending on which borough/vilage/town/city you happen to be in at the time just seems like madness. It may be perfectly legal and enforceable but it's still bonkers.
Finally, as the radar guns used by the police were not designed/tested/calabrated for use on cycles any atempt to prosecute a speeding cyclist is likely to be thrown out if challenged.
Interesting that there are no comments here about Metropolitan Police’s formal (and pragmatic) objection to the plan being that roads should be designed for the speed limits desired e.g. 20mph, rather than just putting up signs & paint on the roads.
Though often poorly designed, many existing cycle ways prevent cyclists from speeding, without needing formal limits, signs etc.
Highway code rule 170 (for vehicles) includes:
Take extra care at junctions. You should
• watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way
20 mph??? Surely one exsanguinates through ones ears at such an extreme velocity.
Only when going through a tunnel.
If cyclists are exceeding 20mph in 20mph zones chances are its as a desperate attempt to get out of the way of the motorist doing 30mph and hooting angrily as they come up behind them.
This is a new one on me. I can think of several dual-carriageways or motorways that have 50 limits, but the "look and feel of the road" suggests it should be a 70.
The police seem quite happy to enforce those.
Has anyone ever tested standard police radar guns on cyclists? I would imagine that they are less accurate than when used on a car, due to the lack of a large reflective surface and the greater amount of relative motion from flapping clothing and turning wheels.
I don't know Southwark, but I can't imagine that many cyclists will be regularly exceeding the limit. Throw in that the police don't seem interested in enforcing this and we probably won't see anyone getting ticketed for a good while.
Some time ago going down the A4 into Reading there was a police officer in a bus lay-by with a radar gun who kindly shouted out my speed to me as I went past. Yes it was the same as what my garmin was showing.
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