If it’s just a pedestrian crossing, you should be off and pushing.
Highway Code, Rules for Cyclists 79 Do not ride across a pelican, puffin or zebra crossing. Dismount and wheel your cycle across.
If it’s a ‘toucan’ crossing, you can ride across. In these, the green man will be a green man and green bike signal.
Not sure I’d get into an argument in the middle of the street if you were heading across at walking speed and being considerate. But strictly speaking he’s right.
What puzzles me is, why do people think it’s okay to comments to cyclists? Would they stick their oar in if it was a pedestrian or car driver? Something about cycling seems to attract uninvited comment.
Either way right or wrong ..I think if anyone was having a go at me in the middle of a crossing I would tell him to get in touch with himself ..the arrogant arsehole
My son was told off for crossing a dual carriageway on his bike using the pedestrian crossing. Going to school, in his uniform. On a bike. Across a busy dual carriageway. On his bike. Going to school.
I definitely would have killed the person who did this if I’d known who it was. Killed them dead. Death would actually be too good for them. A few years of torture first maybe.
It works both ways guys, if as a group ‘we’ want to be taken seriously and not just seen as road tax avoiding, congestion causing menaces (i believe that’s the common misconception among anti cycling mouth breathers)…then we have to ride to a decent standard, jumping red lights is a no no despite what people think…just because you think it only affects you if it goes wrong is irrelevant, I used to ride my motorbike like a ****, if I got it wrong nobody but me paid the price but that’s not how the public and the law see it.
Good news if traffic wardens and coppers start dishing out fines to nob’ead cyclists.
It works both ways guys, if as a group ‘we’ want to be taken seriously and not just seen as road tax avoiding, congestion causing menaces (i believe that’s the common misconception among anti cycling mouth breathers)…then we have to ride to a decent standard, jumping red lights is a no no despite what people think..
Oh DO **** off with that collective responsibility bollocks.
I could write a letter to every household owning a bicycle asking them all if they’d mind awfully not jumping any lights and it would make ****-all difference. I could stop, dismount and doff my cap to every driver passing me and that too would make ****-all difference.
I’ll ride based on my safety and convenience, the safety and convenience of other road users and then the law.
If it’s safer for me to cross a road or to duck around / through a junction to get away from traffic (which by the way also helps the “traffic” as I get out of the way) then I’ll do it.
There is no collective repsonsibility so PLEASE stop propogating that bullshit.
To the best of my knowledge you can’t get a fine for riding across the carriageway. Pedal cycles are freely allowed on it.
You can, however, be fined for cycling on a footway, so the legal issue with riding across a crossing is dependent on what’s either side of it: if it’s footway, it’s illegal to ride on, but if it’s a shared foot-/cyclepath then it’s legal.
The Highway Code is not law: you can’t be fined for contravening its rules. So this…
Yep so as a rule you were in the wrong and could be fined.
…is wrong. The crossing is not a footway, it is part of the carriageway.
The “don’t be a dick” rule applies in up to three ways here, depending on the actual context:
1. Don’t be a dick by cycling in a way which poses risk to others.
2. Don’t be a dick by making up things about £30 fines to have a go at people who aren’t posing a risk to others.
3. Most importantly of all, don’t be a dick by creating crap infrastructure where people on bikes face few pragmatic choices other than to use pedestrian routes (or to never bother taking a bike out of the house) or where small gaps in fragmented cycling infrastructure cause inevitable conflicts such as this.
As for this…
if as a group ‘we’ want to be taken seriously and…
Anyway, the OP’s pedestrian was also breaking the law.
Pedestrians not to delay on crossings
19. No pedestrian shall remain on the carriageway within the limits of a crossing longer than is necessary for that pedestrian to pass over the crossing with reasonable despatch.
The Zebra, Pelican and Puffin Pedestrian Crossings Regulations and General Directions 1997
There’s no “also” about it. There is actually a law (that really **** one that can **** off) about dawdling on a crossing, but there isn’t one about riding a pedal cycle on a crossing.
Ironically, if you remember the viral video of the pedestrian walking backwards into a cyclist on a zebra crossing, the pedestrian was potentially breaking two laws (the above plus assault) and the cyclist was breaking none (though, like the pedestrian, was still being a dick). But, y’know… where’s the headline in that, eh?
a) people who think they know the law but don’t, and
b) people who think they can design infrastructure but can’t.
Crack on, you’re fine; just being a bit cheeky with no harm done, like crossing at a toucan when there’s a red man and nothing coming: entirely legal, perfectly harmless in the right context, just disadvised by the Highway Code.
If people want to start imagining laws that don’t exist, there’s not much you can do about it.
Riding across a crossing is pretty good evidence that you had just, and were just about to, ride on the pavement. Although you could have ridden along the road, stopped in the gutter at one end of the crossing etc.