On 10/04/2019 09:36, TMS320 wrote:

On 10/04/2019 02:12, JNugent wrote:

*IF* you don't support pavement cycling, there is nothing to stop you
saying so, explicitly.

Nobody "supports" pavement cycling. Some of us just don't think it is
something to get worked up about.

In other (more honest and less weaselly) words, "some of" you don't
think - and refuse to accept - that there is anything wrong with it. To
the extent that such a stance is distinct from supporting it, the
distinction is purely semantic.

But you don't say it, which tells its own tale.
As the lawyers have it: silence gives consent.

It's not a binary issue.

It's a plain breach of the law designed to protect all of us when we are
pedestrians, which is most of the time. That is very definitely a right
or wrong issue. And cycling along footways or in other areas where
cycling is prohibited by law is simply illegal. Except in some
far-fetched situation-driven extreme case (I don't rule that out as a
matter of principle*), it is an offence which ought to be robustly
enforced.

It was obvious that neither of you would take an opportunity to condemn
pavement cycling. And the reason is obvious.

[* I accept that in a wholly exceptional case - note the word "case" and
its correct meaning - it might be physically necessary to cycle on a
footway,just as in another analogous case it might be necessary to drive
on one, or to do something else, such as temporarily riding or driving
without lights. But such cases are, as I said, wholly exceptional and do
not form part of any general approach to the issue.]