Routemasters (again)

On Fri, 2 Aug 2013 17:12:02 +0100, "NY" wrote:

"JNugent" wrote in message
...
On 02/08/2013 11:12, Bertie Wooster wrote:

From what you appear to be saying, so long as the lights on the
pedestrian crossing were green for the cyclist, and the cyclist wasn't
engaged in wanton or furious cycling, no offence occurred (section 170
of the 1988 road traffic act does not apply to cyclists).

Is a bicycle not a "mechanically propelled vehicle" for the purposes of the
act?

No. A bicycle is a human powered machine.

Presumably there are other more general obligations that apply to
anyone who injures someone else, irrespective of the circumstances.

Morally, certainly. I'm unsure of the legal situation.

For what it is worth, I think that the cyclist's actions in fleeing
the scene of the crash is contemptible.

Presumably the cyclist would still be guilty offences relating to failure to
stop at the crossing to let pedestrians cross (and relating to causing
injury if anyone was injured) - *please* tell me that cyclists are not
exempt from this requirement too (!)

If the light is green, I still feel that the cyclist should have
stopped.

Years ago I witnessed a cyclist who injured a pedestrian who was already on
a zebra crossing: I was walking towards the crossing and heard someone
behind me yell "Out of my f**cking way" so I turned round and saw a cyclist
overtake two cars that had stopped to give way to a woman pushing a pram on
the crossing. Again yelling "Out of my f**cking way, he swerved between the
offside of the leading car and the traffic island in the centre of the road,
and clipped the woman as she scurried into the central island. Having come
off his bike he skidded across the road and narrowly avoided going under the
wheels of an oncoming HGV.

He tried to run off but my mate who was built like a brick outhouse
restrained him and "persuaded" him to wait until the police arrived. There
were a lot of witnesses so the police moved most of us on and didn't take
statements, but my mate who did give a statement said the cyclist was
ranting and raving about how the pedestrian and the cars had got in his way,
and was livid that the police didn't release him as the innocent party.
Utterly bewildering that a tiny minority of cyclists think that they have
priority over everyone else on the road, and give the vast majority a bad
name. I never heard how it ended, but I presume he was convicted - hard to
see how he could not be in the circumstances and with so many witnesses.