Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Topic started by: Afasoas on 09 February, 2024, 12:34:32 pm
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Paragraph 9 in Section 24 of the https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989/1796/regulation/24The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations (http://) reads thus:
(9) Paragraphs (1), (2), (3) and (4) do not apply in respect of–
(a)a solo motor bicycle or a pedal cycle being pushed along the left-hand edge of a carriageway;
(b)a pedal cycle waiting to proceed provided it is kept to the left-hand or near side edge of a carriageway; or
(c)a vehicle which is parked in an area on part of a highway on which roadworks are being carried out and which is bounded by amber lamps and other traffic signs so as to prevent the presence of the vehicle, its load or equipment being a danger to persons using the road.
Paragraph (1) is basically stating that no person shalt use or leave a vehicle on the public highway without relevant position/marker/stop lamps.
How is this meant to be intepreted?
I'm taking it as a provision for dynamo lighting without a standlight?
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(9)(b) is for bicycles with dynamo lighting without a standlight. That provision is there to make dynamo lighting legal.
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(9)(b) is for bicycles with dynamo lighting without a standlight. That provision is there to make dynamo lighting legal.
But not, it seems, for right turns. I assume this dates from the heady days of Cycling Proficiency, when gutter-hugging was considered sensible.
Standlights (and the general non-enforcement of bicycle lighting rules) make it academic. I can't imagine why anyone would buy a dynamo light that didn't have one other than perhaps as a backup to some other light.
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The stand light function on my dynamo light has gone to the great light in the sky.
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The traditional advice was:
- If your dynamo goes out when you stop, turn right by waiting on the left until there is no traffic (because you can't wait in the right lane without lights)
- Push your cycle, when not riding, by walking on the pavement but having it in the gutter (that's how I was taught as a child in the 60s, but I don't think anyone would do it now)
These points clarify that doing those things is legal because lighting is not required in those situations. Yes, these days, you'd push a bike with it on the pavement, and choose a dynamo with a standlight, but the exceptions remain.
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The stand light function on my dynamo light has gone to the great light in the sky.
Probably the spot-welds holding the legs on the supercapacitors. They don't do well in high-vibration environments and light manufacturers seem reluctant to blob them in lashings and lashings of silicone by way of strain relief.
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The traditional advice was:
- If your dynamo goes out when you stop, turn right by waiting on the left until there is no traffic (because you can't wait in the right lane without lights)
I have a dim recollection of being taught that as part of Cycling Proficiency. File with turning right on roundabouts by riding round the outside while indicating right, in that if the traffic is scary enough to warrant it, you're better off switching to pedestrian mode.
Was pedestrian mode considered illegal before Crank vs Brooks? Would explain a few things...
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Nowadays, pushing your bike by walking on the pavement with the bike in the gutter would be impossible due to parked cars, unless you're out of town – in which case there's unlikely to be a pavement.
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Was pedestrian mode considered illegal before Crank vs Brooks? Would explain a few things...
I think it's more about changing assumptions. 50+ years ago, it was taken for granted that bikes, being vehicles, should behave like such. You don't push a car on the pavement when it's broken down, and similarly you don't push a bike on the pavement when you're not riding it. That kind of thing. And there was no great problem pushing bikes in the gutter, so why not?
Now, the predominant issues are that it's not safe to do that, and, as Cudzoziemiec points out, there are too many parked cars in the way anyway. So we've become used to bikes being pushed on the pavement, and no-one bats an eyelid at it (unless it's Regent Street on Christmas Eve). The law hasn't changed, but assumptions have.
The law didn't need to change, because it was never really clear on these things. There are quite a lot of areas where the law is unclear because no-one's needed to work out what it means. When the need does arise, and people feel it's important enough, there's a court case. If that is in a high enough court, it sets a precedent. But for bikes being pushed on the pavement, no-one's done that. So there's a general assumption that a bike ceases to be a vehicle when you stop using it as one, but not really much law to back that up.
From what I understand, Crank v Brooks was quite specific to the individual circumstances, so doesn't really have an effect here in establishing a general principle about when a bike is a vehicle. I did once come across someone who argued that you could always take off the front wheel (or whatever bits were necessary to make it no longer a practicable vehicle). However, since the need to do that has never been tested in court, neither, obviously, has whether that would be an acceptable solution in law.
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Nowadays, pushing your bike by walking on the pavement with the bike in the gutter would be impossible due to parked cars.
FTFY
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The stand light function on my dynamo light has gone to the great light in the sky.
Probably the spot-welds holding the legs on the supercapacitors. They don't do well in high-vibration environments and light manufacturers seem reluctant to blob them in lashings and lashings of silicone by way of strain relief.
This, but with the added possibility of the solder joints holding the legs onto the circuit board. I seem to remember fixing one on a Brompton.
(I can't see it being a problem on the supercapacitors that I've been working on for non-bike project. They have M14 studs at one end and M16 at the other. 6 of them in series kept a 55 W halogen bulb alight* for over 30 minutes)
*FSVO alight.