To Dave James: Thank you for your encouraging words.During the last four years I have tried many things to secure police enforcement of the law against pavement cycling; letters in the national and local press, correspondence with Ealing Council’s ‘cycling team’, Home Office and DfT ministers, Met Police local and HQ, London’s Mayor, The National Audit Office, Ealing Cycling, the CTC - all to no avail.I started posting on this website after Ealing’s Assistant Director Strategic Transport Nick O’Donnell wrote to me last August threatening to BAN me from communicating with anyone at Ealing Council if I persisted in pressing my case with him. I have not bothered Mr O’Donnell since because his mind is obviously closed to rational argument, but others might like to write to him.There is no point in addressing ‘cycling groups’ who are fiercely defensive. They constantly argue that until the roads are made safe for them they will reserve the ‘right’ to cycle on the pavements. A senior spokesman for CTC, the national cycling charity put it to me recently in the following quotes:“We’re still fighting like hell to persuade the Home Office, Police and Crime Commissioners and individual police forces to devote the resources needed to enforce road traffic law. We’re also fighting like hell to secure Government commitments to the funding needed to create decent cycle-friendly conditions which make cycling a safe and normal activity for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. We’re still having to fight to get Bikeability cycle training funded so that it is available to all pupils of secondary as well as primary school age, and indeed to adults.” “IF WE COULD SECURE THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT TO ACT ON THE ABOVE ISSUES, CTC WOULD BE FAR MORE COMFORTABLE ABOUT GIVING UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT TO ENFORCEMENT ACTION ON PAVEMENT CYCLING.” “WITHOUT THAT POLITICAL WILL THOUGH, FIXATING SOLELY ON ENFORCEMENT ACTION AGAINST PAVEMENT CYCLISTS MERELY RISKS A SITUATION WHERE CYCLISTS THEMSELVES FEELING ‘PICKED-ON’, IF NOBODY IS OFFERING THEM A SAFE AND LEGAL ALTERNATIVE.”“Cyclists aren’t a homogenous group and many cyclists decry pavement cycling in any event. Others do it out of fear, some do it because they don’t know it’s illegal (or don’t think it’s a particularly serious offence), while others either don’t recognise or don’t care about the intimidation and it causes”. “… the absence of decent cycling conditions makes it hard to call simply for enforcement action against pavement cycling, given how many people would feel (quite justifiably) that safe and legal alternatives often don’t exist.”“I do take your point that the sign would work if used as a sticker rather than an actual road-sign. But if that’s the case, there’s no need for DfT to be involved. Any local campaigner or campaign group could persuade their local council to take up this idea. Indeed, I can well imagine that’s what DfT would say to us if we tried taking it up with them. If it works, it will spread, they will say.”A classic ‘CHICKEN AND EGG’ situation despite the fact that the chicken (Parliament) laid this particular egg (Section 72 Highways Act 1835) nearly 180 years ago.MY POSTS ARE ADDRESSED TO PEDESTRIANS to encourage them to act against pavement cycling in any way they see fit, having provided them with all the information they need to convince themselves that the LAW is on their side if only they will exercise it. NO CYCLING stickers on the lamp posts in Ealing would certainly give PEDESTRIANS the courage and authority to challenge pavement cyclists, may even influence the cyclists themselves, and would certainly help the police to deal with persistent offenders. Hence my draft paper to the GLA which I have also submitted to Ealing Council leader Julian Bell.THE CURE REALLY RESTS WITH PEDESTRIANS – EALING COUNCIL AND THE MET POLICE WILL ONLY REACT TO OVERWHELMING PUBLIC DEMAND – SO GET DEMANDING OVERWHELMINGLY!PUBLIC APATHY encourages unlawful behaviour. I shall continue to try to overcome it. If cyclists feel ‘PICKED ON’ (CTC above), so do PEDESTRIANS!All the work I have put in on this topic which you seem to appreciate so much (and others so fiercely challenge) will be wasted if YOU AND OTHERS don’t take action.
Tony Purton ● 4391d