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news
Handcuffed bike (CC licensed by sashamd)Leave your bike unlocked in Boston & police will lock it up for you
Police in Boston, Lincolnshire are to crack down on cycling in pedestrianised areas of the city but in an attempt to extend an olive branch to the town’s cyclists they will also chain up unlocked bikes so they can’t be stolen.
Reacting to an increase in bike thefts, Boston police are urging cyclists to use a good lock and leave their bikes in plain sight, but they’ve got a further tactic if that doesn’t work.
In their “We locked it so you don’t lose it” campaign, police will securely lock unlocked bikes and leave a note for the owners to report to the police station to have their bike released.
But Boston police and Borough Council are also worried about cyclists riding in pedestrianised areas of the town and a crackdown is imminent.
A statement from Lincolnshire police said: “There have been some collisions and close calls recently.
“One particular problem area is St Botolph’s footbridge over the river. It is used by lots of pedestrians and at busy times can be quite congested.”
Cllr Derek Richmond, Boston Borough Council’s portfolio holder for the town centre, said: “Some cyclists persist in trying to ride their bikes through the pedestrians, weaving between them. Often they approach at speed from behind. It only needs an unsuspecting pedestrian to alter their course at the wrong time and they can end up being badly hurt.”
Cllr Richmond, who claims to be a cyclist himself, added: “Cyclists are to be applauded. They brave the traffic and all weathers to travel in the most environmentally-friendly fashion and help reduce congestion, but they must show consideration for others, especially pedestrians.”
No cycling - in five languages
One explanation for the lack of compliance with Boston’s ‘no cycling’ signs could be the lack of clarity of the classic British bike-in-a-red-circle sign.
Lincolnshire police said: “Although signs in a red circle indicate something that is prohibited, the absence of a diagonal bar across the picture of the bicycle has often caused confusion to visitors from overseas who, on occasion, have even thought the sign denoted a cycle path.”
The solution: a new sign with text in no fewer than five languages:
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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20 comments
Nope, go on tell me what the alternatives to riding through this "pedestrianized" area are, go on tell me? oh wait, bet you can't without consulting google maps.
I bet it involves some motorway style "ring road" or "one way system"
Happy to be proven wrong but i suspect i might not be ; )
How did you guess?
War on cycling?
Hyperbole, much?
Ah so the war on cycling is still going full steam ahead, even from so called "councillors" who claims to be a "cyclist" himself.
*yawns*
Got any real "news"? Doesn't seem like it.
Close calls, close f**king calls.
Do something about cars on the roads before talking about close f**king calls.
And whilst over an unstated period there were "some" collisions of completely unknown severity, how many cyclists were maimed on the roads?
edit: better get some caffeine in me quick lol.
the bicycle in a red circle "no cycling" road sign is pretty much the same in many countries, the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals attempts to standarise these things (and current UK signage from the 1960s onwards follows this), and a standard prohibitory sign is a black icon on a round white background with a red border.
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden appear to be the only European countries that have a diagonal stripe across the 'no cycling' (and other prohibition) signs.
The issue here is that many road users don't know what standard road signs mean, and given that cyclists don't have compulsory testing on rules of the road, it could be argued that a "no cycling" sign might be contravened more often than others.
If they want to stop cycling over the footbridge, they should allow cycling over the nearby Town bridge in both directions somehow. It's currently one way.
Is the Town Bridge not two way for buses already? That would make it easier to allow bikes two way.
And yes, we are not all Kippers (or Boston Bypass Independents), but a distressingly high proportion are.
My brother was pinched for cycling on the footbridge some years ago.
It seems like simply putting a red line through the bike on the existing signs would be WAY more effective than creating a new sign in 5 languages that makes each so small that no one will read it
And don't use those cable locks, I can cut through the thicker ones in 60 seconds with cheap pliers!
Was in Boston a couple of years ago and everyone was cycling. Bikes are attached to every post or obstacle. One thing is though that every bike looks like it was dragged from a skip. No fancy carbon or snazzy wheels. If you turn the pedals and the wheels turn that makes it a good one. Maybe that's the way to go. I have heard that Amsterdam is similar. I think we are maybe to fond of the fancy bikes to be a cycling nation.
I was startled by this comment. I go into town every week and it does not strike me that there are a lot of cyclists, but I suppose by comparison with some other towns there may be. I will risk sounding old by saying, in my youth there were many more cyclists about. The Fens are of course flat, and good for utility cycling. It is over 10 miles from Boston to the nearest gradient.
BTP have been doing this at Reading station, leaving notices on the bikes.
https://twitter.com/BTPreading/status/376261547754283008/photo/1
Hand-cuffs, seriously? I'm assuming that was just a publicity shot?
Yours sincerely
Harry Houdini
Why NOT put a red line through it.
Traffic signs have to be designed and put up exactly in accordance with the DfT Traffic Signs Manual (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/traffic-signs-manual). If they deviate from this (e.g. by adding a red line where the manual says there's not one) then they become unenforceable. The offender can claim that as the sign does not appear in the highway code he/she had no idea of its meaning.
As for taking the obvious next step of changing the Traffic Signs Manual - well, that will keep scores of civil servants in work for 5 years.
I had no idea there were so many polygots in Linconshire
I had no idea there were so many polygots in Linconshire
Yes, but you'll probably find they're Portuguese, Polish or from the Baltics.
The locals vote ukip.
Not all of us do!
Ultimately, we're nearlyall immigrants to this island if you go back far enough. Ukippers d are mad trying to hold back the tide.
Nice idea, but what's to stop someone claiming someone else's bike?