20 mph zones

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My local council has made a traffic order creating 20 mph zones on some of
the residential streets near me (coming into force on Monday, although
there's no signs up yet...)

The order says that "no person shall drive a motor vehicle" etc.

Is it normal to exempt cyclists from this sort of speed restriction or is
it just that 'speeding' on a bicylce is assumed to be covered by other
legislation?

When roads get closed the wording is usually along the lines of "no person
shall cause a vehicle to proceed along" which makes me wonder why there's
a difference in this case.

peter

naked_draughtsman wrote:
> My local council has made a traffic order creating 20 mph zones on
> some of the residential streets near me (coming into force on Monday,
> although there's no signs up yet...)
>
> The order says that "no person shall drive a motor vehicle" etc.
>
> Is it normal to exempt cyclists from this sort of speed restriction
> or is it just that 'speeding' on a bicylce is assumed to be covered
> by other legislation?
>
> When roads get closed the wording is usually along the lines of "no
> person shall cause a vehicle to proceed along" which makes me wonder
> why there's a difference in this case.

Speed limits apply only to motor vehicles, private roads and royal parks
excluded.

~PB

On Sat, 03 May 2008 03:38:51 -0500,
naked_draughtsman <usenet3@petereverett.co.uk> wrote:
> My local council has made a traffic order creating 20 mph zones on some of
> the residential streets near me (coming into force on Monday, although
> there's no signs up yet...)
>
> The order says that "no person shall drive a motor vehicle" etc.
>
> Is it normal to exempt cyclists from this sort of speed restriction or is
> it just that 'speeding' on a bicylce is assumed to be covered by other
> legislation?
>
> When roads get closed the wording is usually along the lines of "no person
> shall cause a vehicle to proceed along" which makes me wonder why there's
> a difference in this case.

All road speed limits apply only to motor vehicles. If they want to
prosecute a cyclist it is for 'cycling furiously' or 'dangerous cycling'
or somesuch.

--
Andy Leighton => andyl@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

Pete Biggs wrote:
> naked_draughtsman wrote:
>> Is it normal to exempt cyclists from this sort of speed restriction
>> or is it just that 'speeding' on a bicylce is assumed to be covered
>> by other legislation?
>
> Cyclists aren't specifically excepted, it's just that they aren't included
> in speeding legislation. Everything is legal unless it's banned. Speeding
> legislation specifies only motor vehicles.
>
> I assume that the speeding law was introduced because speeding motor
> vehicles were regarded as a problem and there wasn't already any law to deal
> with it.
>

The story goes that AC cars were testing a Le Mans race car on the M1 at
very high speed - ~185MPH. It made the press and probably put added
pressure on the MoT to introduce a speed limit. I think there had been
quite a few serious crashes on the M1 at around the same time as well.

Pete

In article <481C9B83.5040600@EGGSANDSPAMblueyonder.co.uk>, Pete wrote:
>Pete Biggs wrote:
>>
>> I assume that the speeding law was introduced because speeding motor
>> vehicles were regarded as a problem and there wasn't already any law to deal
>> with it.
>
>The story goes that AC cars were testing a Le Mans race car on the M1 at
>very high speed - ~185MPH. It made the press and probably put added
>pressure on the MoT to introduce a speed limit. I think there had been
> quite a few serious crashes on the M1 at around the same time as well.

Speed limits that applied only to motor vehicles are much older - cyclists
were never required to be preceded by someone walking with a red flag.

In article <481C9B83.5040600@EGGSANDSPAMblueyonder.co.uk>, Pete
ningi@EGGSANDSPAMblueyonder.co.uk says...
> Pete Biggs wrote:
> > naked_draughtsman wrote:

> > I assume that the speeding law was introduced because speeding motor
> > vehicles were regarded as a problem and there wasn't already any law to deal
> > with it.
> >
>
> The story goes that AC cars were testing a Le Mans race car on the M1 at
> very high speed - ~185MPH. It made the press and probably put added
> pressure on the MoT to introduce a speed limit. I think there had been
> quite a few serious crashes on the M1 at around the same time as well.
>
There were already speed limits when the first car drove on a British
road in 1894 - remember the man with the red flag (introduced for steam
engines, applied to cars when they first appeared). 1895 saw the limit
raised (from 2/4mph) to 14mph, 1903 to 20mph, 1930 RTA abolished speed
limits for cars, 1935 introduction of 30mph limit in towns, 1965
'temporary' 70mph national limit, 1978 national 60/70mph limit made
permanent.