MP calls for “three strikes and you’re out” rule for pavement cyclists

It's those pesky cyclists again ………….

Stewart Jackson for chancellor,prime minister and new SNP leader.

You know a politician is just phoning it in when the most damning thing he can say is that cyclists make people "seriously irritated".
Is that really the best you can do Stewart Jackson? If you really want to pander to your public then perhaps you should trot out the old canard about how all cyclists are guilty of red light jumping. Or maybe the old favourite that cyclists don't pay road tax. Or that they're not insured.
But to say that they make people crazy mad just shows a total lack of effort on your part. If you really want to be perceived as a man of the people then you must try harder.

*Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.

Yes, some more details on this here:
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=51527

Whats the point of impounding a BSO that can be replaced in less than 5 mins!?. Will they have a minimum and maximum age for who they nick? will they choose to target one race of people over the other?

Police are pretty poor at crime as it is, i can't see them stepping out of the Greggs Bakery line to chase a pavement cyclist

"Mr Jackson says his eyes were opened to the strength of feeling about people who ride on the pavement at a local Police and Community Neighbourhood Panel where he found people “were seriously irritated, annoyed, crazy, mad” about them."

That's because, in general, the people who attend these Panels *are* 'crazy, mad'.

I went to one of these meetings once, everyone was over the age of fifty, paranoid types, the leader said she kept a baseball bat under her bed to battle invading burglars.

They aren't representative of anyone.

Where I live, they closed the cycle path for months, and then the police put out a warning to cyclists (based on one of these panels) to stay off the pavement. The very next day a cyclist was hit by car on the adjacent road (30mph limit, but plagued with speeding) and airlifted to hospital. The police quickly deleted their warning.

People on community panels WILL spend their time ranting about youths 'hanging around' in parks, people riding bikes, because that's the kind of world view they have. If the police take their priorities from these panels, we are f***ed.

Must admit I had the same immediate thought: apply it to driving as well as cycling and, yeah, let's do it. An FPN for speeding, one for parking on double yellows and another for having a worn tyre, and your company Beemer's gone and it's fifteen grand to get the thing back.

Or is this just a slight case of double standards?

Oh, yes, it is. That's novel, then.

Can we have a "three strikes and you're sacked" policy for highway engineers and local authority members who design and approve cycle paths that are just lines on pavements? Or is that too much like a potential solution?

I don't approve of pavement cyclists, but I do wish there was a zero-tolerance approach to _driving_ on the pavement.

There's a spot near a local school where not only do parents on the school-run always park in the bike-lane (as happens outside every school I know of), but when approaching the school they tend to use a combination of the bike-lane and the pavement as a special high-speed 'undertaking lane' (two wheels in the bike lane, two on the pavement). Sometimes other drivers do the same, to skip the queue of traffic and get to the junction faster.

Consequently the paving there is all smashed to fragments.

And pavement parking!! Get caught three times within,say, a week, and your car is put in stocks in the village square (I think Conservative MPs like the idea of a stocks in the village square )

Not saying this isn't an issue, but is this really such a pressing problem? The statistics for pedestrian injuries would indicate motor vehicles are a much, much larger problem - even accounting for various factors (# of cycles, miles travelled in urban areas, etc.)

I would also paraphrase "he found people were seriously irritated, annoyed, crazy, mad about them" to "he found the type of people who pitch up at local Police and Community Neighbourhood Panels “were seriously irritated, annoyed, crazy, mad” about them." That - and hedges - and young people - especially young people, all "slightly superior and arrogant".

“[T]he slightly superior and arrogant attitude of some hard core cyclists, who really don’t believe that basic roadcraft rules and conventions and the Highway Code really applies to them.”

That bit at least makes sense.

So isn't there something like 20,000 motorists out there with more than 12 points on their license? With some having in excess of 50 points?

Maybe we could start with those first?

Or even with everyone who's actually caused a death or serious injury on the roads due to dangerous or careless driving? Some multiple times?

Or is that too sensible?

Given the actual title of the article ... " Westminster Life: Plague of ‘couldn't give a damn crew’ " ... you'd be forgiven for thinking he was talking about his fellow MPs.

And for an article published yesterday but which would hit most people's doormats or in-boxes today - you'd have thought an MP could have found something more important to discuss.

Are we going to start doing the same for motorists? Break the law 3 times and your car is confiscated until you pay the full value of it? I must admit this idea is growing on me.