Tom Crispin wrote:
> JNugent <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Tom Crispin wrote:
>>> Martin Dann <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2008-05-06a.47.3&s="highway+code"#g47.5
>>>>> Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates' courts for cycling on a pavement, England and Wales 2002-06(l)(2)
>>>>> Year Proceeded against
>>>>> 2002 94
>>>>> 2003 95
>>>>> 2004 118
>>>>> 2005 143
>>>>> 2006 145
>>>> Plus an increase in FPNs from 665 to 821 between 1999 and 2000[1].
>>>> Yet the same government has been proclaiming a massive increase in the
>>>> amount of white paint put on footpaths to *encourage* cycling on them.
>>>> [1] IMHO the FPN data is meaningless without date from more years.
>>> Of those 145, how many were innocent? Without knowing that is it as
>>> meaningless as reports that a fish was seen in Sozhou (pronounced
>>> sue-joe) Creek through Shanghai. Without knowing if the fish was
>>> alive or dead it is useless as evidence that the Creek is less
>>> polluted.
>> At a guess, it's likely that precisely zero were innocent. It's hard to
>> conceive of a police officer pulling up a cyclist for cycling on the
>> footway if the cyclist was cycling along the carriageway (personal
>> grudges excepted).
>> Of course, some may have been "innocent" in the sense that the
>> prosecution paperwork wasn't served in time, or not enough copies in
>> triplicate were sent to some local official, or something.
>> But "innocent" in the sense of not having illegally cycled on the footway?
>> Nil is the most probable number.
> I have twice been prosecuted for drunk in charge of a bicycle. I have
> twice been found innocent of that offence.
Different sort of evidence required - similar results used to be
obtained by motor-vehicle-drivers before 1967.
You can't be visually confirmed to be drunk. How "drunk" you are (in the
absence of a rule about blood alcohol and a way of enforced measurement)
is a matter of subjective opinion.
On the other hand, you can very easily be visually confirmed to be
cycling, riding or driving along a footway. It's a bit like smashing a
window: " I saw the defendant, your Worships. He picked up a half-brick
and threw it at the jeweller's window".
But anyway, shame on you - most of us have never given the police cause
to suspect that we might be drunk in charge of anything.
And why twice? That sounds like bad luck - or perhaps like very good
luck, given the outcome(s).
Mind you, I once got breathalysed at dead of night in Aldershot, of all
places (apparently because I didn't know the area and was driving
hesitantly, looking for and at road signs). Of course, the test was
negative and there was no question of it progressing to a prosecution.