"We get a lot of kids wheelie-ing through": Police claim danger of "anti-social behaviour" should be tackled with town centre cycling ban

Great

So another pedestrianised area where decent cyclist tootle trhough slowly and respectfully and get asked to stop by an enforcement officer - and do so and get fined

And the local lads do circuits through it "for a laugh" and never stop when told to do so

After all - how exactly do they expect to stop a 14 year old on a bike if he (normally a he!) just rides off and you have no way to identify him??

Oh - yes - you could employ several otehr people with better powers (i.e. Police Officers) to block the exits - but even then if he gets onto a road then a car would be needed and they are not going to knock him off his bike - and eventually he will just turn up a one way street with an opening at the end and get away

In the meantime - 5 other respectful cyclists have been fined again

or is that just me??

The problem here is that you can get to be a Police Inspector with no idea of the difference between anecdote and data, or how to do evidence based decision making. So Inspector Knacker turns up at the local liaison meeting and proposes that all residents should plant pampas grass outside their houses to keep rogue elephants away, because he's got it and he's never been troubled by a rogue elephant, and local politicians defer because he's Knacker of the Yard...

As someone who has to do evidence based decision making, I despair of these dimwitted loons who play to the crowd at these sorts of meetings.

Serious Question.

Can PSPOs actually be enforced against minors?

IIRC in Grimsby that was the stated reason, and they found they could do nothing so ended up pulling pensioners.

if there are a few pedestrians behaving in an anti-social manner will they ban all pedestrians? 

As a not so proud Nuneatonite who lacks the skills to "pop wheelies", I do wonder about the council and police's ability to tackle ASB cycling when they can't even enforce the rules regarding drivers in the pedestrianised zone. They've got automatic raising bollards that simply lower to let any vehicle and driver in 🤦‍♂️

Here in Southampton we have a pedestrianised high street on which cycling is permitted. In fact it's still classified as a road, except it's blocked off at both ends. The problem is that a lot of people don't know that cycling is permitted and you will sometimes be confronted by pedestrians, or even by the police demanding that you dismount. The local paper published a letter calling for the rules about cycling in the pedestrian area to be enforced, but there are no rules to enforce as cycling is permitted.

Personally, I will only ride down there if it's quiet. People are stupid and unpredictable and it just takes too long to get through if it's busy.

If the problem is cyclists pulling wheelies, can they not just ban wheelies?

It is a right measure banning cycling from pedestrian zones. Just look at how many hundreds of pedestrians are killed by speeding cyclists in UK every year.

I haven't seen the exact stats, but given that hundreds of pedestrians are killed in public roads by motor traffic, I am sure they must be at leasts hundreds or even thousands. Could it be possibly be millions?

I didn't think that "power to stop anti-social cycling in the town" was the same as "power to stop ALL cycling in the town, whether antisocial or not".  Am I being dense?

TBH, I thought that Inspector Kris Shore must have a case, after all, the police wouldn't waste the time of an inspector on such minor things when they have shoplifting, speeding, burglary, assault and RTAs to deal with would they?

Or more likely the good inspector is rabidly anti-cyclist.

To bring in an ASBO surely demands some sort of proof, and saying that kids are wheelie-ing around the place hardly constitutes that.  If the inspector can't provide such proof, they should go back to inspector school until they understand that you can't just bring in new rules because you want to, you have to demonstrate need, with facts.

As Cllr Keith Kondakor points out, it won't affect the kids doing the wheelies who will be encouraged even more by defying the rule.  The only people it will affect are the responsible cyclists, and they will be deterred from riding and will become contemptuous of the police and the council. 

So the ASBO won't achieve its sole aim and will bring the council and police into disrepute.  Possibly not quite the win-win the inspector should be looking for.

Really poor reporting here, you've omitted to mention the number of people that have been killed, seriously injured or slightly injured by these terror cycling gangs. Clearly it must be a very significant figure for the police to justify calling for such draconian action?

One stretch of road near my place gets a few boy racers popping their big-bore exhausts and squealing their tyres. Perhaps we should ban drivers from that specific stretch...

Edit: by 'few,' naturally I mean 'quite a lot.'

Just a question ... how many are "kids wheelie-ing around" are there?  My guess is about 4 or 5.  Deal with them problem sloved. 

If they are "kids" what are the consequinces for them if cycling is band?  Told not to do it again?  Because it would not be (AND should not be) detention for x months.

How many cars are "Wizzing down the roads" above the speed limit just 100 yards away?

Why not just ban wheelies in the town centre?

Why ban granny cycling to the shops, so the world is a better place for the grandchildren?

*Monday rant over

Does anyone in power who's considering this measure have any evidence that such PSPO's actually reduce the occurence of dangerous cycling in the areas where they're enforced? I doubt it. I'm sure they'll go ahead with it anyway, and then as the trope goes in a few months there'll be some seventy-something year old lady getting her groceries copping a £100 fine.