Derbyshire Police share video of cyclist fined for jumping red light — insist "cyclists must stop"

Nope,it will simply be the cyclist admitted guilt when stopped & questioned.

No problem with the ticket as far as I'm concerned

Well there is as far as I am! I am quite surprised at the way cyclists have acquiesced with the principle here, even though they can't do anything about the practice- we have to accept that the police observing something is different to members of the public doing so. We now have two topics largely extolling the police really sorting those bloody cyclists out in order to appease the hyper-junk press and their crazed nutter readers. 14 officers to nail those RLJ cyclists was bad enough, but a fine in this case was not reasonable. I think the cyclist went through the lights too quickly, and I would have slowed to ensure no pedestrians in the vicinity and then proceeded. This is my specialist subject- admittedly only in Lancashire- and drivers in massive tipper trucks crashing through the lights at 50+mph are essentially waved through by a Lancashire Constabulary too busy to do anything about it. As you know only too well, there are loads of RLJ offences going on every day 1/2 a mile from where I am now. For months and years Lancashire Constabulary did nothing whatsoever about them- now they're doing essentially nothing, with layer upon layer of non-penalties when they could kill off the offences rapidly by dispensing a mere 3 points on several occasions. As it is, the nutter BMW drivers just carry on, because they know it's only 'words of advice' or the joke warning letter they're risking- this is silver PY65 GYF

You can check the lights yourself and a court would accept that they can't show green in more than one direction at a time.  You are being fobbed off by the police.

I was told it was not possible to prosecute unless the specific light that was jumped was visible in the video to demonstrate that there was no fault with it

This is the standard dodge by the police, and is used routinely in Lancashire where it is doubly disingenuous because they have no intention of prosecuting any RLJ offences. In a way, it was a relief to me because it's difficult to get the number of a vehicle hammering across at 60mph on the other side of the road, with a diagonal view and other vehicles getting in the way. They will use any excuse to get out of doing anything and it wasn't worth my while objecting because there were quite enough offences on my side of the road which they were ignoring

No, the crossing shouldn't be a zebra crossing, that's what it used to be when every road user flouted the rules, leaving pedestrians stranded, waiting for vehicles to have the courtesy to stop, leading to the crossing being upgraded to what is there now.

This is situated on the A6 between the tourist towns of Bakewell and Matlock, as well as being the primary access to Chatsworth House from the south and is an exceptionally busy road throughout the year.

Regardless of whether there was a pedestrian crossing or not, the cyclist should have slowed and stopped if neccessary just as the motorists had done too. It only take one pillock to screw the system up for everyone else, although the officers should choose their words more wisely next time as that was hardly speeding

Owd Big 'Ead wrote:

No, the crossing shouldn't be a zebra crossing, that's what it used to be when every road user flouted the rules, leaving pedestrians stranded, waiting for vehicles to have the courtesy to stop, leading to the crossing being upgraded to what is there now.

This is situated on the A6 between the tourist towns of Bakewell and Matlock, as well as being the primary access to Chatsworth House from the south and is an exceptionally busy road throughout the year.

Regardless of whether there was a pedestrian crossing or not, the cyclist should have slowed and stopped if neccessary just as the motorists had done too. It only take one pillock to screw the system up for everyone else, although the officers should choose their words more wisely next time as that was hardly speeding

so you didn't read the 18 words after the words you responded to?

Zebra crossings work best as they allow pedestrians to proceed without delay and cars not to be delayed for empty crossings, but BECAUSE drivers are not respecting the law we are pushed onto pelican crossings. This is made worse by the pointless delay on the beg button.

And yes, I agree the cyclist should have stopped and have no issues with the fine as in my other post. but IF the lights had changed promptly to the button press (as they should) the pedestrian would be on the crossing when the light was red, and in th cyclist would (most probably) have stopped.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Of course this has occured because the crossing is a pstrian crossing with a beg button and a delay. So the pedestrian has pressed (out of habbit) seen the lights not change, seen the road is clear and proceeded. If motor centric infrastructure did not insist on delaying pedestrians for no good reasosn, this would not happen, as red lights would only occur whilst the crossing is in use.

We don't see enough at the start of the video, but I came to a similar conclusion - either the pedestrian has crossed long before the light turned red, or the 'pedestrian' is the cyclist we can see riding away from the crossing on the path on the left (who maybe crossed before the light changed).

A while ago I realised that delay after pressing the button on this sort of a crossing serves no-one - the light is going to turn red for road users at some point, the delay just determines which road users (i.e. the road users now or some later road users). The end results are:

1. There's often no-one there to cross when it finally turns red.

2. Our children learn the lesson that the time of road users is more valuable than the time of pedestrians.

NB: not that any of the above is a defence for the cyclist who was ticketed.

More replies like this please.

cyclisto wrote:

Two questions:

1) Does the policeman issues tickets to all pedestrians he sees crossing roads not on zebra crossings or with a red light?

Probably not, because that's not an offence.

cyclisto wrote:

2) The policeman reversed a 1 ton car on a narrow road to protect roads from a cyclist, slightly passing a red light at a junction with good visibility. Am I the only one who thinks the fine issued was more dangerous that the traffic violation itself?

I can't see how a turn there was particularly dangerous. It might have been more dangerous than the cyclist's actions, but only inasmuch as moving a car around at all is inherently more dangerous than a bike. Ignoring it and carrying straight on when the lights changed would probably have been more dangerous than the bike as well.

cyclisto wrote:

Two questions:

1) Does the policeman issues tickets to all pedestrians he sees crossing roads not on zebra crossings or with a red light?

2) The policeman reversed a 1 ton car on a narrow road to protect roads from a cyclist, slightly passing a red light at a junction with good visibility. Am I the only one who thinks the fine issued was more dangerous that the traffic violation itself?

1) I should hope not - it's perfectly legal for pedestrians to use roads however they want to (excepting motorways). I guess that you may be an American and are thinking of Jaywalking laws - the motor lobby didn't manage to persuade the UK to take on such an anti-democratic law.

2) The police car maneouvre looked safe enough to me. The road seems straight and should have reasonable sight lines and there wasn't lots of traffic.

3) I personally think that kind of RLJing by the cyclist is an example where cyclists should be allowed to progress carefully through a pedestrian light when there's clearly no pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross. I expect that the crossing had a mandatory timer behind the beg button and maybe a ped had pressed the button and was then able to cross the road before the beg timer ran down. This is an example of a road designed for motor traffic and little thought given to other modes of transport.

cyclisto wrote:

Two questions:

1) Does the policeman issues tickets to all pedestrians he sees crossing roads not on zebra crossings or with a red light?

2) The policeman reversed a 1 ton car on a narrow road to protect roads from a cyclist, slightly passing a red light at a junction with good visibility. Am I the only one who thinks the fine issued was more dangerous that the traffic violation itself?

What they said. Whilst this tweet I believe to be ill advised and possibly even discriminatory in principle, Peds can cross the road when they see fit. Cyclists currently don't have that discretion regarding red lights (established or otherwise....)

cyclisto wrote:

Two questions:

1) Does the policeman issues tickets to all pedestrians he sees crossing roads not on zebra crossings or with a red light?

2) The policeman reversed a 1 ton car on a narrow road to protect roads from a cyclist, slightly passing a red light at a junction with good visibility. Am I the only one who thinks the fine issued was more dangerous that the traffic violation itself?

1) no, because no offence has been comitted (and long may it remain that way)

2) I don't see any issue with doing a 3 point turn in this location, the majority of urban roads in this country are a similar width, and everyone would have had to earn this manouvre to pass their test.

While technically against the law, (and therefore the cyclist takes his own chances with being fined), I won't get upset about this sort of red light jumping as he has good visibility of the crossing and can see it is empty, risk is zero. I'm also  not upset about the fine, the police car is visible enough that anyone who has observed carefully enough to know the crossing is empty should have noticed the police car and reconsidered the wisdom of blowing through the crossing.

Interesting that the cyclist is described as going over the crossing 'at speed' while cyclists riding at similar speeds have been reprimanded by police for obstructing traffic.

What's the police person to do ? Clear offence , we need to ' person-up' and take it on the chin in those rare cases we deserve it.

There is no clear offence - see wtjs photos.

If I had submitted this to a police portal, it would be nfa - no evidence of passing a red light.

The difference between this and the wtjs images is that in this example the police took follow up action and 'traced' the rider/driver involved. Immediately

Presumably they interviewed the rider and they admitted to cycling through a red light. If the rider had said that the light was on green, I'm not sure that there would be enough evidence to prosecute.

This tweet is really opening up a Pandora's box as regards complaints and video evidence. 

zero_trooper wrote:

If the rider had said that the light was on green, I'm not sure that there would be enough evidence to prosecute.

The police would be expected by a court to have checked the lights were working properly.  Court would be happy to accept that the lights were not showing green in more than one direction.

Beyond reasonable doubt.

Is a policeman saying 'I checked the lights and they appeared to be working correctly' reasonable?

zero_trooper wrote:

Beyond reasonable doubt.

Is a policeman saying 'I checked the lights and they appeared to be working correctly' reasonable?

Yes, that's perfectly reasonable. Whenever I've seen traffic lights that are faulty, they've been turned off completely - I've never seen lights that have been inconsistent for different directions.

hawkinspeter wrote:

zero_trooper wrote:

Beyond reasonable doubt.

Is a policeman saying 'I checked the lights and they appeared to be working correctly' reasonable?

Yes, that's perfectly reasonable. Whenever I've seen traffic lights that are faulty, they've been turned off completely - I've never seen lights that have been inconsistent for different directions.

I've seen sets of lights where at least one lamp has been non-functioning - if all three red lamps on the side facing the cyclist were non-functioning, that would look a lot like "turned off completely". Whilst I'm stretching the bounds of what is plausible.... might also be a defence if the cyclist were blind - I don't think there's any legal minimum sight reqiurement for cycling*

* as has been mentioned above there's no such requirement for motorists either, if the loss of vision is temporary (e.g. blinded the sun or looking somewhere other than where you need to).

jh2727 wrote:

I've seen sets of lights where at least one lamp has been non-functioning - if all three red lamps on the side facing the cyclist were non-functioning, that would look a lot like "turned off completely". Whilst I'm stretching the bounds of what is plausible.... might also be a defence if the cyclist were blind - I don't think there's any legal minimum sight reqiurement for cycling*

* as has been mentioned above there's no such requirement for motorists either, if the loss of vision is temporary (e.g. blinded the sun or looking somewhere other than where you need to).

Non-functioning lights would be plausible. Poor eyesight would be an interesting defence as you could have partial sight and be able to cycle yet might miss seeing the light entirely (I wouldn't fancy cycling in traffic with partial sight though).

'person-up'.. cute; the stupidity of non-gendering can be exemplared with the use of the word 'man', as it's often the shortened version of human.

grOg wrote:

'man', as it's often the shortened version of human.

Hate to be that guy but 'human' comes from the Latin humus for soil and homo for adult male. Whereas 'man' comes from Germanic mann, related to Sanskrit manu, meaning human being and man.
So if they're related words they split from eachother long before history began.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that the cheap and nasty booze moniker wouldn't be about to homo-up.

grOg wrote:

'person-up'.. cute; the stupidity of non-gendering can be exemplared with the use of the word 'man', as it's often the shortened version of human.

Except that in the phrase in question, 'man' clearly is used in a gendered way - it's an exhortation to become 'more like a man' (whatever that means), as opposed to women or children, with the implication that is somehow more admirable. So even if one were to accept that your objection had some validity in some cases, in this case it's irrelevant.