http://metro.co.uk/2016/10/26/investment-banker-led-police-on-20-minute-chase-through-london-on-a-pushbike-6217101/ My money is on Aracer… Judge was a cheeky sod though.

Who are these people who have a low esteem for Cyclists?

The problem for this chap was that he cut up a Copper, and as they are above the law only they are allowed to do that. I was Knocked off my bike in Central London by a Copper driving through a red light on the wrong side of the road in an unmarked car. I dont remember him getting dragged to court and fined.

Did you report it? Did he have his blues and twos on?

If only I had a £2.7 million house.

Though whilst the magistrates comments are shit (has one ever told a motorist doing far more dangerous things “you are doing nothing to enhance drivers’ reputation”?) I’m kind of confused why you think I’d ride like a **** when that’s exactly what I don’t do? Are you failing to understand the difference between supporting cyclists rights and knowing that in general they don’t introduce the danger to the road, and thinking that they can do whatever they like?

If you want me to conform to the stereotype you clearly have for me, I’d point out that cycling dangerously is actually WAY less dangerous than driving dangerously, yet you get comments like “cutting across the path of a marked police car, which had to quickly brake” as if he’d put the police car in danger of getting a dent, and the fine appears to be rather higher than some drivers get for killing cyclists.

This seems entirely fair and I’m glad. Cyclists that ride through red lights and do random things with no warning give us all a bad name. I commute on my bike sometimes and drivers often don’t give you much space and treat you with disdain. Some of that has to be put down to idiots on bikes disregarding all road laws. Although there are always idiots in cars regardless.

Well now you’ve sucked me in 👿

Do drivers disregarding the law in a way which is far more dangerous for other road users “give all drivers a bad name”?

Aracer +1

£2.5k is excessive when you consider that some drivers get no more than a slapped wrist for endangering a cyclist..

£115 fine & banned for a few months..

Investment banker roadie vs the polis. Damn that’s a tough one to pick sides.

Do drivers disregarding the law in a way which is far more dangerous for other road users “give all drivers a bad name”?

Yes?

Stand by any busy traffic light controlled junction – and you will see car drivers habitually running red lights on every cycle.

They don’t even pay road tax, etc.

drivers often don’t give you much space and treat you with disdain

That has nothing to do with how cyclists ride. If all cyclist rode 100% to the letter of the law the bad drivers would still drive with no care for cyclists lives with an attitude that saving a few seconds on their trip is more important than potentially knocking off a cyclist.

joebristol » Cyclists that ride through red lights and do random things with no warning give us all a bad name.

Highlighted the key bit…

Like he’s somehow one of us and we are also responsible for his behaviour and he is dragging us down. But that same logic doesn’t get applied with pedestrians doing bad things, or drivers doing bad things, that’s just them doing bad stuff, not us doing bad stuff.

Nobody sees an article about a drink driver, tuts, turns to their mates (with driving licenses) and says “give us a bad name that does” do they?

“cutting across the path of a marked police car, which had to quickly brake” as if he’d put the police car in danger of getting a dent,

or perhaps; forcing the cops to take avoiding action that otherwise might have killed him. If he’s have stopped, and had a conversation with the cops, they’d have probs just “had a word\” and let him get on his way, instead of acting like a ****, and ending up in court.

Can’t believe they caught him, deserves the fine.

Bicycle rider is a moron.
Judge is correct in his comments.
Although if I was the bicycle rider, I would be ashamed I had been caught to be honest.

Can’t believe they caught him

on foot, more the shame.

There are d*cks on bikes, d*icks in cars, d*icks in lorries and buses and on foot too.

If people could just all stop being d*cks then we’d all get along better!

I was Knocked off my bike in Central London by a Copper driving through a red light on the wrong side of the road in an unmarked car. I dont remember him getting dragged to court and fined.

Did you report it? Did you take any action at all? If you had something should/would have been done as we have to treat red lights as a ‘give way’.

Never understand the point or need for newspapers to state the value of the concerned subject’s house.

Deserves a fine, thought the fine itself excessive. But then again why run just going to make it worse for yourself.

Ride it like you stole it

If you read the article it was £125 for riding a bike like a muppet. £1000 for failing to stop for police

Edit numbers don’t add up at the end of the article….?

Comma ( £1,25) suggests there’s a missing zero there.

It was based entirely on the fact you work with money and live in that London, but you go girl!

If Al Murray in his Pub Landlord guise had been the magistrate there would have been another part to the fine – for the cyclist being french and having a ‘stupid’ french name.

in general they don’t introduce the danger to the road

No, but they can introduce danger to pavements though which is what happened here.

Chester Stockwell, I did report it, and was told exactly that. The driver had commited NO offence as he was treating the red light as a “GIVE WAY”

I Also Questioned the legality of coming straight at me on my side of the road, basically he was about 10 cars back and cut into the on coming traffic to meet me head on. I wasnt Injured as i slid off the bonnet and was Cycling with 3 Other colleagues. I was working in Whitehall at the time 2008 and didnt persue any cause of action and didnt go ambulance chasing, “Way too dangerous” Apparently.
We took the Piss out of the coppers for a few weeks as was usual at that time and didnt really get that bothered about it at that time.

Getting back to the OP, I think it’s a bit steep fining him that much when Dangerous drivers get fined a pittance in comparison. It looks to me like the Judge doesnt like Cyclists much or people with a more expensive house than his. Despite him being a Millionaire he should be treated exactly the same as other folk instaed of thinking, “he’s got a bob or 2 we’ll have some of that”

Cycling in London has it’s own code of conduct. Its exactly the same as everywhere else there are good Cyclists and poor Cyclists. The good ones get away with more than the bad ones mostly because they are experienced and have good road sense even though they make poor decisions, the problems arise when the poor cyclists try to replicate the deft bike handling techniques of the Fixie brigade on a Boris Bike.

I drove down from Hampstead around Regents Park and down Mreylebone High Street across Oxford Street and down Bond Street into the West End this morning. it was pitch black and there were bike lights everywhere around RP, It looked great.

More cyclists should feel the freedom of running red lights as they do in Europe, It’s such a shame that our infastrcture even now doesn’t accomodate Cyclists.

Despite him being a Millionaire he should be treated exactly the same as other folk

Really?

A £250 fine to someone worth £10m is nothing, but to someone on benefits it’s huge. Some countries fine you based on your income, which seems to make a lot of sense to me…?

Molgrips, Jumping a red light on a bike that cost £100 is exactly the same as jumping it on a £10,000 bike, So what if he;s got £10 Million in the bank? the fact he lives in a £2.7 Million pound house means they could have fined him £250,000 and he still wouldnt have given a shit. Where do you stop then? Empty his bank account and give it to those on Benefits because £250 to them is Huge.

Thats like saying some one on benefits should get a £2.7 Million pound house because they cant afford one and The Millionaire should be down sized to Soscial Housing. Having money in the bank shouldn’t make you a target for huge leveys just because it’s not fair that some folk have none and some others do?

“Some countries fine you based on your income, which seems to make a lot of sense to me…? “
And that’s your version of fair is it? Wow.
I must assume that you feel that some one riding a 2K bike should be fined 10 times as much as someone riding a 200 quid bike.
The severity of a crime has no bearing on your worth or the other way round. And punishment should fit the crime.

Also, would those who wander off on a tangent muttering about car drivers being as bad( I agree) bear in mind that this is about crap cycling. keep to the point chaps.
Some crap baking on telly last night I am told and the dancing has been shoddy at times.

Matt, I think you will find your figures are out. You havent taken into account BREXIT!

Or Jeremy Corbyn for that matter. Theres also been some Shit Football on telly recently but they are good at Dancing. Which has got me thinking, They get paid plenty of money. We should get them on bikes and fine them loads of Wonga.

I must assume that you feel that some one riding a 2K bike should be fined 10 times as much as someone riding a 200 quid bike.

That’s patently ridiculous.

And punishment should fit the crime.

I agree, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

You aren’t seriously suggesting that a £250 fine affects everyone the same way?

Where do you stop then?

You stop at a percentage. It could be for example 50% of one month’s average take home, or I dunno, 1% of net worth or something. Why is this so hard to understand? You lot are making up all sorts of crazy concepts that are unrelate to what I said.

This is how speeding fines work in Finland.

Thats like saying some one on benefits should get a £2.7 Million pound house because they cant afford one and The Millionaire should be down sized to Soscial Housing.

No, it’s really really really not, not in the slightest. In fact that’s completely and utterly unrelated to anything I’ve said and a little bit bonkers.

All I am saying is that it might be fairer if fines (for crimes, you know) were proportional to ability to pay, to ensure they have similar impact to everyone.

The severity of a crime has no bearing on your worth or the other way round. And punishment should fit the crime.

Part of the punishment is to be a deterrent effect against re-offending. If the fine is loose change compared to your income then it fails to do this.

Anyhow, looks to me like he got fined over a grand for the red light jumping/pavement arseholery (typo in the metro), which suggests to me that his income has been taken into account to some extent, so all’s well.

EDIT: Apparently the maximum fine for ‘Dangerous Cycling’ is £2,500. So he’s only halfway there, unless the cumulative fine for Failing to Stop is taken into account.

A £250 fine to someone worth £10m is nothing, but to someone on benefits it’s huge. Some countries fine you based on your income, which seems to make a lot of sense to me…?

Agreed, the point of a fine is to act as a deterrent and the only way that can work is if it’s based on your income. That was probably ‘loose change’ to that guy. Having said that, these things aren’t viewed that well in highly regulated industries, so there may be some more grief for him yet.

Molgrips, Your not the modern day Robin Hood are you?

Jumping a red light should be the same to everyone?
I doubt that this guy cares very lttle that he’s been fined or the fact that he lives in an expensive house. I’m willing to bet he has been dreading everyone seeing his name in the papers and the fact they named his business. His reputational damage is what will affect him the most.

If a Millionaire Kills his wife does he get 4 Life sentances and a £2.5 Million Pound fine? But the bloke in this afternoons hearing who is homeless that killed his mate for a bottle of Scotch get 1 Life sentance and a £250 fine to be paid as and when?

Have you taken into account that the Millionaire is going to have a better legal team or are they to rely on the duty solicitor?

@Martin, That upper figure must be in case they collar Rupert Murdoch out on his rounds.

Remind me how many peds get killed on the pavement every year by cars, and how many by cyclists?

This is turning into a slightly bizarre argument. Magistrates and judges are required to take income into account when deciding on fines.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/explanatory-material/item/fines-and-financial-orders/approach-to-the-assessment-of-fines-2/4-assessment-of-financial-circumstances/

Do some people really think that any attempt to make the impact of a financial penalty more equal is a bad thing?

Nobody sees an article about a drink driver, tuts, turns to their mates (with driving licenses) and says “give us a bad name that does” do they?

I agree with this, generally speaking car drivers don’t do this ^^
However, it’s fairly common among truck and bus drivers when discussing someone (who should know better) doing something stupid on the road.
Perhaps the real problem is that many people don’t consider other people when they act.
People walk/ride bikes/drive cars/trucks/buses etc.

Part of the punishment is to be a deterrent effect against re-offending. If the fine is loose change compared to your income then it fails to do this.

+1

eg: fixed penalty notices for parking offences; bloke near me is loaded, drives a big range rover and leaves it wherever he likes, to him a £60 fpn (reduced to £30 if paid within 14 days) is less inconvenient than actually queueing to get into a car park, so he frequently doesn’t bother.

(actually it’s mainly his wife i think, but point’s the same)

Well it probably costs her nothing as far as she’s concerned.

Remind me how many peds get killed on the pavement every year by cars, and how many by cyclists?

Er.. not following. If one person gets killed by a cyclist on a pavement then it’s not as bad because not so many other people were?

I’m not advocating spending the same resources on policing pavement cycling – if I were, then your point would make sense. But this guy has already been caught for cycling fast on a pavement, which is somewhat dangerous, so getting in trouble would seem appropriate. The fine is mostly for running away from the police though. Not seeing your point?