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news
Dog walker lead (Pixabay License)Cyclists' safety highlighted as dog walkers face fines for using long leads near cycle paths
Dog walkers in the Devon area of Teignbridge District Council will soon risk on-the-spot fines of £100 if they use leads longer than one metre near cycle paths.
The new rule is part of a public space protection order (PSPO) which will come into force from April and cover some areas next to highways and cycling infrastructure.
Owners who walk their dogs on leads longer than a metre can be fined £100, or face prosecution, with maximum fines reaching £1,000.
The rule does not apply for parks and beaches but is an extension of the Teignbridge District Council PSPO, first introduced in 2019 to tackle irresponsible dog ownership.
The council has pledged to improve signage to communicate the changes to members of the public before it comes into effect in the spring.
Dog walkers will also be required to pick up faeces in public places, carry sufficient poo bags, avoid certain beaches during the summer months, and avoid exclusion areas, such as children's play parks.
Councillor Alistair Dewhirst welcomed the extension of the order, saying: "I think it has worked well so far and we want it to continue."
In 2017, a London cyclist wrote to Mayor Sadiq Khan after suffering slashes to his face, back and clothes due to an "almost invisible" dog lead stretched across a path in Blackheath.
Robert Perkins and the dog's owner were injured by the leash, which he did not see as it was "so thin it was almost invisible and it was so long".
"I am likely not the first cyclist that has been involved in such an incident, and fear I will not be the last," Perkins warned at the time.
"While I realise that the green spaces must be shared by many users, my understanding is that dog owners are legally obliged to keep their dogs under control at all times in public – something which is effectively impossible with the use of these types of leads."
In 2015, a man knocked off his bike by an out-of-control dog on a retractable lead won a £65,000 payout from the animal's owner after it leapt into his path while he was training for a Coast to Coast event.
Anthony Steele was riding in a ten-rider group and rang his bell to warn a group of pedestrians moments before the dog leapt into his path, causing the cyclist to crash and fracturing his skull.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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Generalisations are valid in this case; there are enough boomers with negative attitudes to young people to be able to block good things like this....
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This risks turning me into a hanger and flogger....
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In SE London, psychopath riders are the majority of people on bicycles Oh dear! another festive stealth anti-cyclist ☃️
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Well, you know the BMW drivers' saying: knock that house (hospital, social housing, care home, hospital...) down, could save 30 seconds on the trip!
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94 comments
Good luck with that & getting it enforced. I ride through half a dozen different council areas in Melbourne, all of them require dogs to be on leads, fixed length leads with a maximum length of 1.5m. Not one of the councils ever does anything about the fur-babies' owners god given right to let their dogs wizz about on the end of 5m extenda fishing lines or run around off lead because "my dog's fine"
It's very unlikely to be enforced, as we all know the police in Melbourne are far too busy stopping cyclists without helmets. But if you are injured by a dog/owner with one of those leads, they might prosecute them, and you could sue them for lots.
"Shared use path" ... "shared space" ... "shared tracks" ...
So I think we can see most of the issue. Environments where people feel they can walk or would prefer to walk (possibly with a dog) and cycle are not sufficient - certainly not for both. Some of those have suggested segregation (paint) but even where that is used it's not helping. There's the whole "cycling is essentially a recreational activity / for children" idea too.
Can't remember the exact quote but Terry Pratchett had a line about "What does people eating pigs' ears and trotters tell you? Someone else is pinching the pig."
So mostly that plus a "people are arseholes and will do chaingangs in parks or let their dogs run at people / crap everywhere" which I'd file under "needs local enforcement".
We've still not heard from the dog riders though?
As a keen dog owner myself...
Is that as in "One of them terriers tried to come in my sett and I totally owned him"?
I'm a cyclist and a dog owner.
When walking my dog, I liken being passed too fast and too close by a cyclist with little or no warning to being close passed by a car driver on the road.
Where ever there's a dog on a shared path there should be an owner and, taking into account the new hierarchy of road users, The Highway Code now says that cyclists should give way to pedestrians. I always slow down whenever there's a pedestrian and go even slower where there's also children or a dog involved whether on a lead or not.
I frequently exercise my dog on a shared use path by the canal and there are signs that say that cyclist should give way to pedestrians. I find the main danger is cyclists coming up from behind too fast without using a bell or giving any type of warning. We need time to recall the dog. Given enough warning my dog will come to me and sit while a cyclist passes by.
Dogs need exercise and proper exercise involves the dog being on a long lead or preferably off lead. Properly exercised dogs are generally better behaved. When dogs aren't exercised properly they can become prone to bad or obsessive behaviour. A dog is not going to get proper exercise on a one metre lead.
Another consideration is that a dog walk is not only physical exercise but also mental stimulation. Dogs like to investigate their environment through sight and, in particular, smell and they can't do that as readily on a one metre lead. A flexi lead gives them more freedom to explore whilst still being near to their human.
If you're keen on people obeying the highway code and also frequently exercise your dog on a shared use path then rule 56 may be of interest to you.
"Dogs. Keep it on a short lead when walking on the pavement, road or path shared with cyclists or horse riders."
But...Boris said, yesterday..."we don't need legislation to compel people to act considerately towards others" (may be slightly paraphrasing)
That's alright, then, I can sleep easier, now...
If Boris said it, it must be true*.
*Contains several tons of irony.
Off topic but clearly that's why so many government MPs felt Owen Patterson was unfairly treated. After all who legislates for the legislators? Obviously it doesn't make sense to make strict rules about what they can and cannot do, or enforce them. We will just have to trust our elected representatives not to engage in graft.
Retractable leads should be banned from sale, they do t give any control. I see so many dogs on them with no recall that are allowed to jump up on people and run wherever they want while the human doesn't pay any attention
Really? How many have you used? Feels like a "HiViz" comment to me.
That sounds like human error to me. Like any other lead, it's just a bit of string, with a dog at one end and a fallible human at the other end.
Some time ago I got a nice new Audax machine from my bike vs dog altercation, on a mixed footpath*, when an uncontrolled dog ran under me (bent 2 tubes of a 531C frame and also the forks) - luckily the dog survived and I suffered only bruising and scrapes. This sort of thing isn't going to be helped by planners that will continue to mix the two and I'm also calling out the likes of Sustrans (I assume it's them) who think that sending bikes down well established dog walking routes isn't going to cause problems. Case in point: NCN Route 28 outside of Bovey Tracey, slap bang centre of Teignbridge District Council's area of authority (see above). It's not fair on either party.
*the type where a nice solid line protects the walkers from the cyclists - much like those white lines that protects cyclists from cars.
On my local shared tracks, the problems I see are usually dogs on a long lead, or worse, dogs which are off the lead but not under control: I approach slowly and sound my bell, the dog runs around almost getting caught in my wheels as it tries to bite me whilst the owner tries to call the dog which completely ignores them.
The other problem which is just as dangerous is people walking with sound deadening headphones on. It doesn't matter how many times I ring my bell and shout, they ain't never gonna hear me. Couple this with them walking towards me in the centre of the path with headphones on, staring at the phone and completely oblivious to everything else around them. Even when I am passing people and call out my usual friendly greeting, I get nothing in return. Are they just rude, or can they not hear me talking to them due to the headphones. If it's the latter, then they are a danger to themselves and others too.
If you can't beat 'em join 'em #2
If you can't beat 'em join 'em #1
It' actually illegal to control a dog from a bike. These devices should no longer be for sale in the UK.
Citation needed.
There may be circumstances where riding with a dog amounts to riding "on a road without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road" as per the Road Traffic Act, but that's not the same as it being universally illegal.
Edited to add: And if we're going to start banning things from sale that can be used to break the law, let's start with cars capable of more than 70mph please.
Only time I ever walked my dog while I rode was an interesting experience and very sharp learning curve.
We were up in the woods around where I am, and he was having the time of his life trotting alongside me.
I didn't have one of these spring-loaded gadets as I wanted to see if he would behave himself before parting with the cash.
Anyho, he was on an extending lead, the handle of which was firmly attached to me with a lanyard as his recall was crap, and he didn't like other dogs ..
So there we were, faithful dog totting alongside bike riding owner, enjoying the peace and tranqulity of the woods.
Then ... he decides that he doesn't want to run anymore, and sat down.
Extending lead did what extending leads do, and so it was a few seconds before the change in motion registered.
He was a collie / rotweiller cross, and weighed in around 40 or 50 kilos ...
I hit the ground like the 100kg sack of spuds that I am. The dog, bless him, got up and came wandering over to me, laying there on my back - winded but pretty much ok - liked my face and looked at me as if to say "That'll teach ya".
I never combiened the two activites again, and I cringe everytime I see others doing it.
I thought it was illegal, however I can't find anything that says in that it is - other than Section 68 of the HWC.
I'm a dog walker, a hill walker, a cyclist and a car driver to name but a few of my activities and see the good and bad in people from several view points. There are, unfortunately, bigots in all four camps. I just try not to be one.
A lot of these comments read a bit like those after articles in the Daily Mail about cyclists.
I was thinking the same. Yes, dog walkers should keep their pets under control, but also in a shared space you have to be prepared to yield your priority, go a bit slower and make allowances for the errors of others.
Rather like the tolerance, care and basic decency that some of us patiently and endlessly encourage from the mouth breathers that infest every local news facebook story even tangentially linked to cyclists.
"Shared space"... Part of the problem is giving the lion's share of the streetscape to cars, moving or static. Then everyone else ends up fighting over scraps.
Thank god someone else said this. I was half expecting pages of ill informed rant where "leads" had been substituted for "helmets and hi-viz".
Typical council knee jerk response to a minor problem. "Something must be done and this is that something"
I don't think so. DM articles about cyclists are riddled with inaccuracies, misinformation, fake news, and complete ignorance of the law. All the comments here seem to be reasonably accurate.
Exactly - I think it's easy to say the two are comparable; we are after all calling out a 'minority' whom we need to share space with. The principle difference as I see it are that usually (red light jumping aside), cyclists are following the correct guidance/regulations whereas those extendable leads mean that dog owners aren't.
I think also it will very much depend on your experience of shared use space. Here in MK we have miles of shared use Redways so we see it a lot more.
Redways are super dangerous in the early morning. You can encounter dogs on leads where it's right across the redway, dogs not on leads that want to run across, icy corners, pedestrians with headphones on moving across the path, drunk pedestrains, broken glass. I used to use the redways to cross the grid (bridge or underpass) and then use the internal roads to move inside the grid. Redways are great, but only really for leisure cycling or walking, or robots!
You're missing the point - it's still about the "othering" of an out group. Think of long leads and RLJ'ing
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