The latest advice email from the DSA made me smile for various reasons:
You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement.
Rule 64
I think that is how you define “succinct”. It’s worth noting that the full Highway Code contains more rules and guidelines both for and about cyclists.
It also made me smile because with the recent news that our new national god and idol, Bradley Wiggins, had been knocked off his bike, you’d have thought the best place for cyclists to be would be off the road and on the pavement. After all, that’s where they go when they want to avoid stopping at traffic lights or bypass other traffic (and before that bunch of spandex-clad Scottish biker boys gets itself all wound up again, yes, that’s what most cyclists DO do).
Fortunately, Wiggins (and the national head coach, who was involved in a separate incident) will make a full recovery. But you have to ask what alternative fate might have befallen Wiggins if he hadn’t been riding on a main road in the dark, and during rush hour – and presumably a little faster than the average cyclist. And he didn’t do himself any favours with that middle-finger salute when he left hospital.
One thing that appears certain is that the woman driver who hit him is likely to get the book thrown at her, because our enforcement people have entered full-on, media-versus-anyone-who-ever-even-met-Jimmy-Saville mode over the incident (i.e. blame, blame, blame, blame).
Incidentally, I got a Police Caution Letter for riding on a pavement when I was at school. Then, the intervening years appeared to encourage people (children especially) to stay off roads because they’re dangerous. Then, when we entered our Green Period (characterised by all the Wiggins-wannabes clad in Spandex, with what appear to be walnuts shoved down their leggings as they cultivate their varicose veins), we all discover that Number One Priority on roads must be given to the pushbike.
Go figure.