Should a 'road tax' be introduced for cyclists?

[ashkeba]

to give one example, calling out to a cyclist "Mind my dog", and he went completely ape, yelling and ranting, mostly using a two word phrase while giving the one finger.

That response is wrong but telling others to mind the dog is also wrong. Dogs in public outside dog parks or private land should be minded by their owners and kept under control, not left troubling others. UK dog owners seem awful at keeping their mutts under control on paths. The last serious injury I had was from an "it's OK he's friendly" dog running into my standing leg and then knocking my walking stick away. So if someone tells me to mind their dog, I may be a bit rude when I tell them to do it themselves !

 

[JamesT]

Yes, quite so. If a road includes one or more footways, pedestrians would usually walk on those.


Quite, of course it applies only to roads without separate footways. There never was never any suggestion that on a road including footways to both sides, pedestrians were supposed to walk on the one on their right.


As above, I don't suppose there was ever any intention that the reference to walking on the right in rule 2 should apply where there was a footway. There is no conflict between Rule 1's provisons concerning pedestrians on footways and Rule 2's provision for pedestrians walking on roads without footways, because the two could not both apply in the same place.


Both could only possibly apply to road users in motion, as their 'left' and 'right' will be defined by their direction. (E.g. a stationary person standing in a road might reasonably be on either side of it. It would only be once they started walking along it in one direction or other that it would be sensible to refer to the sides of the road as being on their left or right relative to their direction).


It is a plain statement that on roads without footways pedestrians should "keep to the right-hand side". I see no scope for interpretation or misinterpretation there.

But the conversation was about whether there was a requirement that pedestrians on pavements or footways should keep right. Your initial response was that Rule 2 was a blanket rule regardless of whether motor vehicles were involved or not.

 

[bramling]

That response is wrong but telling others to mind the dog is also wrong. Dogs in public outside dog parks or private land should be minded by their owners and kept under control, not left troubling others. UK dog owners seem awful at keeping their mutts under control on paths. The last serious injury I had was from an "it's OK he's friendly" dog running into my standing leg and then knocking my walking stick away. So if someone tells me to mind their dog, I may be a bit rude when I tell them to do it themselves !

Yes moans about dog owners could certainly occupy a thread all to itself, and I say that as someone who has had dogs in the past.

The real problem in this country is too many people and poor standards of behaviour in public. The latter seems to have got considerably worse since Covid, no doubt a function of the insular nature of lockdown and the way lockdown was a charter for people to falsely justify all sorts of unrelated things.

But the conversation was about whether there was a requirement that pedestrians on pavements or footways should keep right. Your initial response was that Rule 2 was a blanket rule regardless of whether motor vehicles were involved or not.

I simply don’t buy this keeping to the right on paths. Quite simply, the idea of keeping right when walking in a road is self-preservation, so that if you see a car heading straight for you there is the opportunity to dive out the way (not that this should ever be necessary, but real-life experience shows otherwise unfortunately).

If anyone is advocating that this should be necessary on a path then something is seriously awry. Indeed if the presence of cycles on such paths is that hazardous, perhaps they should be banned from them altogether, which is the logical conclusion of those advocating walkers must keep right.

Meanwhile, I did indeed conduct a straw poll at work today. The whole thing simply got laughed at, the general feeling being either “I’ll walk where I damn well like, cyclists can F off”, or “Surely you’d walk on the left like driving on a road”.

 

[ashkeba]

The real problem in this country is too many people and poor standards of behaviour in public. The latter seems to have got considerably worse since Covid, no doubt a function of the insular nature of lockdown and the way lockdown was a charter for people to falsely justify all sorts of unrelated things.

I view that different of course, with people who were effectively encouraged to break unreasonable lockdown rules without penalty now feeling emboldened to break many other rules which had more merit.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I view that different of course, with people who were effectively encouraged to break unreasonable lockdown rules without penalty now feeling emboldened to break many other rules which had more merit.

Discrediting the law by making unreasonable, unenforceable ones ignored by pretty much everybody (including the person who made them) really doesn't help in terms of the credibility of the rest of it. There really should be no unenforceable laws at all. If it's the law it should be enforced and complied with consistently and reasonably strictly, or removed from the statute book entirely.

For instance we'd be better off with a strictly enforced 80mph motorway limit than a barely-bothered-with 70mph one (as it's not people doing 72mph that pose the real danger, but rather those doing 90-100+).

But I think a lot of the issues post-COVID are just people not being used to being around people and thus forgetting about courtesies entirely.

 

[bramling]

I view that different of course, with people who were effectively encouraged to break unreasonable lockdown rules without penalty now feeling emboldened to break many other rules which had more merit.

Don’t disagree with that analysis. It certainly seems the case that people seem to feel they can do whatever they want now.

One can perhaps add that during Covid many aspects of public life were stopped, so it did introduce a culture of “I can get away with X and no one’s going to do anything about it”.

 

[JGurney]

But the conversation was about whether there was a requirement that pedestrians on pavements or footways should keep right. Your initial response was that Rule 2 was a blanket rule regardless of whether motor vehicles were involved or not.

I did not suggest that pedestrians on footways should keep right. The issue arose in the context of conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists on unsegregated roads which were not open to motor vehicles (e.g. a formerly general-purpose road with a 'no motor vehicles' TRO applied, a restricted byway, etc). Cyclists are not allowed on footways at all, so that is a quite different situation.

I did indeed state that as far as I can see Rule 2 applies to all cases of various classes of user sharing roads, whether or not that mix includes motor vehicles. While I don't have the historical references to hand, I believe that the practice of walking on the right and riding or driving on the left dates back before the invention of the car, and first developed to ease interactions between pedestrian and horse traffic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I did not suggest that pedestrians on footways should keep right. The issue arose in the context of conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists on unsegregated roads which were not open to motor vehicles (e.g. a formerly general-purpose road with a 'no motor vehicles' TRO applied, a restricted byway, etc). Cyclists are not allowed on footways at all, so that is a quite different situation.

I did indeed state that as far as I can see Rule 2 applies to all cases of various classes of user sharing roads, whether or not that mix includes motor vehicles. While I don't have the historical references to hand, I believe that the practice of walking on the right and riding or driving on the left dates back before the invention of the car, and first developed to ease interactions between pedestrian and horse traffic.

As I mentioned the Milton Keynes Redway Code asks users to treat them as "traffic free country lanes", i.e. to walk on the right, ride on the left and do neither across the full width so people can always pass.

 

[Bikeman78]

I view that different of course, with people who were effectively encouraged to break unreasonable lockdown rules without penalty now feeling emboldened to break many other rules which had more merit.

Prior to Covid I tended to stick to the rules. The Covid period made me realise that petty rules, or any rules for that matter, are easy to ignore without consequence. I'm not saying that I'm about to embark on a crime spree but I cannot be the only person that noticed.

 

[341o2]

That response is wrong but telling others to mind the dog is also wrong. Dogs in public outside dog parks or private land should be minded by their owners and kept under control, not left troubling others. UK dog owners seem awful at keeping their mutts under control on paths. The last serious injury I had was from an "it's OK he's friendly" dog running into my standing leg and then knocking my walking stick away. So if someone tells me to mind their dog, I may be a bit rude when I tell them to do it themselves !

My dog was on a short rigid lead, in fact made from a length of fluorescent rope borrowed from the boat. about six feet long. being walked on a quiet road, nobody else around, plenty of room for the cyclist to pass on either side, but no, he apparently was going to try and pass between us.

Nice try to blame me

 

[ashkeba]

My dog was on a short rigid lead, in fact made from a length of fluorescent rope borrowed from the boat. about six feet long. being walked on a quiet road, nobody else around, plenty of room for the cyclist to pass on either side, but no, he apparently was going to try and pass between us.

Nice try to blame me

I do not understand either your use of a rigid lead (is that a pole? ) or why you needed him to mind your dog if it was under control.

 

[341o2]

I do not understand either your use of a rigid lead (is that a pole? ) or why you needed him to mind your dog if it was under control.

Are you not aware of the dangers posed to cyclists by extending dog leads?