Cyclist fined £100 – for riding on a cycle path
The council warden claimed the cyclist was riding on a footway, despite the route being clearly marked as a shared-use path since 2011, enabling the cyclist to successfully appeal the fine for “anti-social behaviour”A cyclist in Colchester was left stunned after she was handed a £100 Fixed Penalty Notice by a council warden, ostensibly under a designed to prevent anti-social or nuisance behaviour, who claimed that the cyclist was “riding on the footpath” – despite the path in question...
“I was riding along the usual route I take back from work, beside one of the town’s main, busy arteries. But there’s a shared cycle and footpath along it, which I use,” Gillmeister tells road.cc. The warden then conceded that his colleague – who Helge believes was standing at the other end of the subway – “maybe made a mistake”, but continued to issue the cyclist with a Fixed Penalty Notice, carrying a £100 fine.
“It’s clearly a shared path,” she says. “I took photos of all the signage and wrote a letter to the council. I contacted the local cycling campaign, because I thought it might be happening to other people too.”However, when Gillmeister studied the Fixed Penalty Notice that evening, she realised that the PSPO that underpinned it did not directly apply to cycling on the footway.
The campaign also pointed out that the PSPO contained vague and “slack” wording concerning pedestrian areas, and called for all pedestrian areas to be individually named for clarity.to effectively ban cycling from some areas,” the group said at the time, referring to towns where the local authorities have implemented stricter, “zero tolerance” rules prohibiting cycling on pedestrian streets, attracting fierce criticism from active travel campaigners in the process.
> “Fining is one of the few options left”: Council proposes charging cyclists £100 for riding on High Street “But the council assured us that the PSPO isn’t meant to penalise anything other than anti-social behaviour. They actually spelt out to us, ‘we’re not like Grimsby, we do not ban cycling from certain areas’.”
“We are pushing the council for answers about the PSPO. We’re happy that the PSPO itself – apart from the fact it doesn’t name pedestrian areas – is clear that you have to be riding inconsiderately or in an anti-social manner. > Council “escalates war on cycling menaces” with new town centre ban, saying: “We will not stop until we eradicate this behaviour”
“What you don’t want to do is punish cyclists who are just trying to go about their business, but they can’t because you’ve got a car-oriented city centre.
According to the campaign, the council has told them that motorists – including, Bramhill and Gillmeister both claim, those frequently driving erratically on Southway – are covered by separate district-wide vehicular public space protection order that prohibits anti-social behaviour using a motor vehicle.
“There are so many things the town could be doing – like clamping down on dangerous driving, I see so many cars skipping red lights, doing all sorts of things. But it’s always the cyclists who get all the flak.”
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