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news
Cyclist at McDonalds (Flickr Creative Commons)Congleton cyclists say McDonald's is discriminating against people who avoid using their car for unnecessary journeys
Cyclists from Congleton have objected to McDonald’s ‘discrimination’ against people who choose to avoid the car for unnecessary journeys. The fast food restaurant said its decision not to serve people on bikes at its drive-throughs was taken, “for the health and safety of our people and our customers.”
Jill Dooney and her husband cycled to Congleton’s drive-through McDonald’s after getting a first shot of a Covid vaccine at the town hall earlier this week.
She told Nub News that they were told they would not be served because they were on bicycles.
The drive-through is open to motorists, but Dooney was told it was against McDonald’s insurance policy to allow people to cycle through.
A spokesperson later explained: “For the health and safety of our people and our customers, we are unfortunately unable to serve customers not in road-going motor vehicles in our drive-through.
"With takeaway temporarily closed we know this is disappointing for some customers, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."
Dooney said: "I object to the fact that they discriminate against people who choose to avoid the car for unnecessary journeys.
"I feel that this policy encourages more car journeys, particularly where children/teenagers want a McDonald's and have to ask their parents to give them a lift.
"Should McDonald's not be encouraged to upgrade their insurance policy or find another way to serve walking and cycling customers in a COVID-compliant way?"
In July last year, a warehouse worker in Stoke complained that he had been left “shocked and embarrassed” after queuing at a McDonald’s drive-through on his bike only to be turned away when it was his turn to be served.
"I believe this is highly discriminatory against young people or anybody trying to do their bit for the environment by riding a bike,” said James Owens. “If cyclists are not welcome, why is this not made clear at the entrance to the drive-through?
“Cyclists and motorists manage to share every other part of the highway so why does McDonald’s think they cannot negotiate a drive-through together?”
On that occasion McDonald’s went into greater detail about why it won’t serve cyclists.
A spokesperson said: “By the very nature of a drive-through layout, vehicles need to pull up close to the service points and as there are no specific pavements or safe areas for pedestrians to use at the same time, safety becomes a concern.
"We are unable to permit pedestrians, bicycles and class-one mobility scooters to use our drive-throughs for these reasons. We are able to serve customers on motorcycles or those using a class-two or class-three mobility scooter."
The policy is presumably not one that applies worldwide however as the firm has previously trialled drive-through packaging specifically designed for cyclists.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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118 comments
Always thought eating McDonald's was a health a safety issue.
So get yourself an e-bike that is above the legal power limit and hence is registered as a road vehicle. Force them to face the issue.
A bicycle doesn't have to be registered to be a road vehicle.. any bicycle is a road legal vehicle; I don't know if McDonalds has this policy in Australia, so I'm going to do a ride through to test them - if they refuse me, I'll get a mate that is a police cyclist to ride through and see if they refuse him.. shoiuld be fun.
The article quoted the McDonalds spokesman:- "For the health and safety of our people and our customers, we are unfortunately unable to serve customers not in road-going motor vehicles in our drive-through."
So turn up with a road-going motorised bicycle and see what happens as a test. Of course the spokesman did say "in" the vehicle, so maybe a motorised recumbant.
I hope he tells you that you both have better things to do with your time.
What is it with giving McDonald’s a hard time. They have policies to follow and that is what they are doing. If someone went to your place of work and started to be awkward what would you think. Was going to say behave like a twat but some people on here get upset with such great use of the English language.
Lucky escape really, my local drive through lane is divided into 2 tyre lanes and a central oil covered lane.
They are being petty and officious, one could use the old 'Mr, can you get me a Big Mac meal please?' How old are you sunshine? 48 Mr.
Time to give up patronising The Arches me thinks.
I dont believe this Elf and Safety at all. AFAIK nearly everything on their approved list requires insurance. I reckon this is arse covering over collisions or similar in the queue.
Thats the only thing to my mind that explains why bikes are banned but motor scooters are not.
“For the health and safety of our people and our customers, we are unfortunately unable to serve customers not in road-going motor vehicles in our drive-through."
Interesting that, if they have a liability under H&S for customers at the hatch, then either the risk they are avoiding is only at the hatch, or it occurs all the way from the entrance to the property to the exit.
What hellish activity makes it unsafe for a cyclist to take food at a hatch? If none, then the risk they are hoping to avoid is not being avoided if they don't prevent cyclists from joining the queue in the first place.
Remember that it's a company at corporate level who has had real experience of people suing them for not providing adequate warnings their product they were about to consume might be hot...so I dont imagine its anything more than a pre-emptive attempt to mitigate against someone failing to negotiate a drive-thru lane on a bicycle and claiming they werent warned properly to take care. Literally like if you handed a bag of McD's to a cyclist and they had no basket to put it in, you are forcing them to ride one handed to leave the drive thru lane.
So it's just simpler to ban it,removes all the doubt,than come up with a setup that might satisfy lawyers and staff can remember to apply.
Drive throughs are public accessible roadways and as such fall under the state jurisdiction for road legal vehicles, which includes bicycles.. I'd like to see qualified legal opinion as to the legality of McDonalds discriminating in this way.
Horse riders have also been refused service at McD's, in UK, anyway.
Meanwhile in America...
These are the rules in Victoria, Australia where I live.. horses are legally vehicles when ridden on public accessible roadways.
Riding animals
If you are riding an animal on the road (e.g. a horse), the animal is considered to be a vehicle.
A rider of an animal must obey the same road rules as other drivers. But, there are also some road rules that apply to riders of animals.
If you are under the age of 18, you must wear a helmet when riding on a horse on a road, footpath or any road-related area.
You can ride an animal on footpaths and nature strips, unless it is specifically prohibited. But, you must give way to pedestrians.
If you are riding beside another rider, you can't ride more than 1.5 metres apart.
If you are using a vehicle that is being pulled by an animal (e.g. a horse carriage) at night, you must have:
two white lights visible for 200m on the front (one on each side)
two red lights visible for 200m on the back (one on each side)
red reflectors on each side of the vehicle towards the back.
Does this apply to motorcycles/Pedalecs/Ebikes? Where is the line?
I think this is it:
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/miniature-postman-pat-van-delive...
So, lets get this straight. You can order a McDonalds to be delivered to your house via an online app by a bicycle courier but you cannot cycle there yourself?
Says it all
The side benefit to this is it might be delivered by long-distance legend Steve Abraham!
As to the point of the article ... I have seen this said a number of times (both before the pandemic and during lockdown #1), and still don't get it.
No one has been able to adequately explain to me what the issue is with having cyclists in the drive-through, particularly when the outlets are not open for any other kind of takeaway service.
Perhaps it comes back to the fact that pedestrians are also not allowed to use the drive-through and McDonalds simply considers cyclists to be pedestrians on wheels rather than actual vehicles.
I'm not sure this is the case now, but they used to use induction loops buried in the road to detect when a car was at the order point - these don't work well for an aluminium bike!
I did once get served at a drive thru, but it took them a while to notice me as I didn't trigger their system. The second time I tried they refused to serve me unless I came into the store.
It's about time someone invented the doorbell.....
That might well be true ... but not sure how that would constitute a Health and Safety issue.
Without wishing to enter the debate about whether or not things are illegal or just ill-advised, or somewhere in between, we also need to bear in mind that the government is attempting to do what it can to enable businesses to stay afloat ... hence my wife and I don't NEED to order takeout food from our favourite Greek restaurant around the corner from our house, but if doing that can help even a little bit to make sure it still exists when we finally get back to some kind of normality then we will do so.
In that context, it is important to remember that while McDonalds itself is a huge international company, each individual restaurant (with some flagship exceptions) is actually a franchise, and is owned and operated by local small businesspeople who are as concerned about their ongoing business as the owners of that local Greek restaurant mentioned earlier.
It is also important to consider that people are much more likely to obey the lockdown rules overall if within those rules there is still the possibility of doing some of the things that they enjoy in normal circumstances, even if that is eating a drive-through burger from a fast food joint.
And I suspect that McDs' main office are still expecting franchisees to pay up, even in these trying times...
This is strange as the McDonalds near me once served me on my bike...Admittedly this was a couple years ago.
Big John's does not have this stipulation. I've been served by them about 10 times on bike, and no one has said anything about it. They even have a cycle lane running past the restaurant. The only downside is that their food is terrible.
Why on earth eat food that you think is terrible?
I cycle past there on the way back from work, and sometimes the smell and hunger gets the best of me. I can usually resist by remembering how bad their chips are (they're like cardboard if you've never had them).
I wouldn't use a Mc D if you paid me but it's the principle. Surely this discrimination is illegal. What if they refused to serve me because I'm black? I'm pretty sure they would be told to change their policy before you can say thirteenspeedhydrauliconebygroupset!
It's become a loaded word "discrimination", but it is perfectly normal and legal as a thing, unless the law says it isn't. Your example is correct - discrimination on grounds of race is illegal. Not that there's a government agency who will take action on your behalf to sort it out.* With the railway companies, some people have taken the bike as disabled adaption route, but I haven't heard of any major breakthroughs from them.
If I ran any sort of business, my sign would say "no SUVs"; my staff would say "I see you arrived in your Freelander, Sir, very sorry but I'm going to have to ask you to leave.", or plain "sorry I can't serve you". Can you imagine??
The McDonalds drive-thru chestnut is surely academic for people on here, but you do wonder, there must be shunts as drivers get impatient in the queue - if a cyclist was in the queue and got hurt would either incident, legally speaking be anything to do with McDonalds?
"And will Sir be chucking that coffee container out of the window at speed on a country lane, or parking up at a beauty spot and dropping the whole lot out of the windows?" "Beauty spot? Excellent choice. Have a nice day."
* when the pre-paid funeral company refused to lay on a wheelchair taxi for my mother to go to my father's funeral, I complained to them afterwards, got nowhere, we didn't feel it was a media case (a pretty potent story, you would think) contacted whatever equalities agency it is nowadays and basically you're on your own. (Her local taxi firm rescued the situation.).
You may recall the Scottish pizza place from last year:
"Customers parking in the cycle lane will not be served".
Seems unlikely since an accident on an Asda car park doesn't involve Asda/Walmart usually. McDonald's just needs a sign to say they're not liable for the driving of others on the premises.
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