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news
London bike commuters in Lycra (copyright Britishcycloing.org_.uk)Solicitor says wearing Lycra or cycling while overweight should be criminal offence, as drunk cyclist knocked off bike by police fined £350
In one of the more bizarre court proceedings we’ve seen in recent years, a defence solicitor has said that cycling while overweight or wearing Lycra “possibly” should be a criminal offence.
Solicitor Seamus Quigley’s joke – or at least we assume it was joke – came as his client, Caolan Roberts, was fined £350 for cycling while unfit through drink or drugs, possessing cocaine, and failing to stop for police, following an incident which saw an officer knock the cyclist off his bike before arresting him.
On Thursday, Derry Magistrate’s Court heard that 24-year-old Roberts was cycling on the Skeoge Link carriageway, just outside Derry/Londonderry, on 28 July when police spotted him and believed he was under the influence, Derry Now reports.
Roberts was soon stopped by the PSNI officers, who found him to be unsteady on his feet. However, the 24-year-old then proceeded to ride off, instigating a chase that eventually led to one officer knocking him off his bike and detaining him.
A subsequent breath test revealed 67 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, almost double the UK drink drive legal limit of 0.37mg/L (though it must be noted that no formal upper alcohol limit for cycling exists, despite it being an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to ride a bike while under the influence of alcohol or drugs). Cocaine was also found in Roberts’ shorts at the time of his arrest.
Along with pleading guilty to possessing cocaine and attempting to flee from the police, the 24-year-old also admitted the charge of cycling while unfit through drink or drugs in court today.
The particular plea prompted Roberts’ solicitor Quigley – who also defended his client during a domestic abuse and assault case earlier this year – to clarify to the court that the charge of cycling while unfit “did not refer to someone being overweight or even wearing Lycra”.
“Although that possibly should be an offence,” the solicitor remarked.
The defence solicitor’s comments, though they may have been made in a light-hearted manner, is alarmingly indicative of the way cyclists’ clothing affects how they are perceived by people who don’t ride bikes, with Lycra gear often providing the focal point of ridicule aimed at people who cycle by anti-cycling mouthpieces on social media and in the tabloid press.
Last year, Australian academic Dr Mark Limb – who co-authored a study which found that people who wear helmets or high-visibility clothing while riding their bikes are viewed as “less human” by motorists – told the road.cc Podcast that the reaction from the study’s participants when shown images of cyclists wearing Lycra clothing was “off the charts” in terms of being selected as ‘less human’.
Moving away from odd jokes made at the expense of cyclists, Quigley claimed that Roberts simply had too much to drink at the time of the incident, arguing that the “biggest danger was to himself”, and that the cocaine found in his shorts was “a very small amount of drugs for personal use”.
After admitting all three charges, Roberts was fined a total of £350.
The 24-year-old’s fine for drink cycling comes six months after just across the border in Donegal a legally blind man received his second conviction in as many years for cycling while drunk, after police found him riding his bike in an “extremely unsteady” manner along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway after a night out.
Gintaras Jankauskas – who was found to be “clinically blind” with a “reading of 6/60 in his vision” – was fined €200 by a judge at Letterkenny District Court in March, after he was found guilty of the offence of “driving a pedal cycle while being under the influence of an intoxicant to such an extent that he was incapable of having proper control”.
This latest incident was preceded just eight months before by Jankauskas being fined for cycling while drunk and crashing into a passing vehicle.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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29 comments
"A subsequent breath test revealed 67 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, almost double the UK drink drive legal limit of 0.37mg/L..."
Some numerical skills training needed?
Or more likely an elementary course in unit conversion.
[Edit]Although it's not quite as confused as the original source story, which says he had 'a reading of 67mgs'. If we ignore the 's' and imagine that they somehow determined the total amount of alcohol in his blood to be 67 milligrams, given that the average person has ~5 litres of blood, that would be over 13mg/L - rather a lot more than twice the limit...
67 ug is 0.067 mg, ~ 5 times less than 0.37 mg. I presume both are L of breath. The UK limit is 35 ug/100 ml breath or 0.35 mg/L.
They didn't say 67ug (or 67 mcg, or 67 μg, or anything else that could plausibly be interpreted as micrograms) though. They said '67 mgs', which (the odd 's' aside) appears to indicate milligrams - a thousand times as much. They also gave it as an absolute measure - not a per volume of breath.
I assume that what was actually measured and reported in court was 67 micrograms per 100 millilitres, which would be almost twice the limit, but both the original reporter and road.cc seem quite confused about it.
"...test revealed 67 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath..." quoted from the article.
Which appears to be wrong. If it was correct, it wouldn't even be close to the limit, so there would have been no reason to mention it in court. The only value that makes sense, and fits with the 'almost double the limit' line, would be 67 micrograms per 100 ml of breath. That would also make sense because it's in the same units as the limit is generally stated.
I was shouted at as I was cycling while unfit up a steepish but short climb the other week. I was so annoyed that I stopped and asked them to refrain from their comments, which led to further abuse, being called a 'fat weirdo', and being asked for a fight, which I only just declined.
I was so mad I did the rest of my ride on pure adrenaline, went the wrong way, but busted my 50k personal record.
"being called a 'fat weirdo', and being asked for a fight,"
Bizarre stuff. I think I would have had a hard time keeping a straight face.
My daughter agrees with him!
Looking in the mirror I think I do too.
I agree with him.
But only if it's also going to be illegal for fat birds to wear leggings. Or short shorts. I mean, if I'm going to be banned from wearing lycra, it's only fair.
That's really not good.
Your comment is inappropriate and offensive.
I've been cycling while unfit for 40 years and some of that was racing while unfit. Does that make me a criminal.......
So should normalising obesity
We can all sue Seamus for our heart opps.
That would be funny
Fake news! No registration plate or licence - how can he possibily have been caught and brought to justice?
Is it now socially acceptable to make fat shaming jokes especially about those that choose to wear clothing that contain Elasthane?
As many drivers are becoming morbidly obese from excessive sedentary lifestyles, the offence (visual?) must surely be equal for all modes? I often see drivers who have the steering wheel embedded in their gut - how can this be this be safe driving?
Maybe they're de-liver-y drivers?
Depends if they've evolved a prehensile gut.
Now come on, everyone you all know fine that cars are bigger than before because of all the lovely safety features they incorporate and not at all because people are fatter and heavier and wouldn't even fit into an original Mini. And the fact that folk are bigger has nothing to do with a car-focused lifestyle or decades of facilitation of door to door motoring.
Probably marginally acceptable if the person in question is wedged in the door to their local Burger King. Much less so for someone on a bike or at a gym, who should be cheered every step of their journey to lose wait and gain fitness.
They should look at themselves first more x more people are overweight.
As for fashion - I m not going to bother here
Good thing cycling kit generally isn't made of Lycra then.
And this is why some people in cars think it's OK to drive aggressively or great fun to push cyclists into a ditch.
I cannot work out why anyone thinks it's any of their business what I choose to wear when I ride my bike. But it is as clear as day that the antipathy towards people on bikes, especially (but not exclusively) those wearing lycra, has been manufactured by a long term campaign of cyclist-bashing in the media.
For comparison, when did you hear about someone being verbally abused for wearing for a premiership or league football / rugby team jersey instead of a normal t-shirt while pushing their trolley in a supermarket?
It's all illogical in the same way as getting arsey with someone in, say, a Ducati branded jacket or Mercedes F1 merchandise (regardless of the brand of car or motorbike they own, if they even own one).
Get Grayson Perry (keen mountain biker) - or rather his alter ego, Claire - on the (test) case. If nothing else it'll be kryptonite for some less-forward-thinking folks.
I always shout 'anchor' at any middle aged man in a football jersey. They often drop to the ground crying and calling 'foul'. Their friends ring for an ambulance....
Wearing an England football shirt in a Scottish supermarket isn't that much of a good idea ...
Don't give up the day job, Seamus...