The Met beefs up its Cycle Task Force

Oh hippy.. you fell for my trap setup & written in the finest of legal-ease.

Yes its ilegal to 'Drive' into a stopbox without due reason.

But its not ilegal to 'be' in a stopbox - because as stated it might have been unsafe to stop outside it.

you'll enjoy this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/29/cycling-advance-stop-line

http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/Advice/TrafficTravel/ontheroad.htm#stoplines

"In this photograph, the taxi has driven beyond the first stop line and into the advanced stop box reserved for use by cyclists, and is breaking the law (unless the vehicle was so close to the first stop line when the lights changed that it would have been unsafe to stop)."

Please explain.

So, if the traffic was clear, their occupation of the ASL was illegal?

cctv

At last some clarity. The DfT said that driving into a bike zone when the lights are red is an offence. It carries a £60 penalty and three points on your driving licence (maximum £1,000 fine if it goes to court). Police have some discretion over which bit of the Road Traffic Act to use, but most likely it will fall under "Failure to comply with a traffic sign or road marking".
So driving into a bike zone when the lights are red is illegal. Although there is apparently a great deal of confusion among the police themselves. One thing is for sure. Booking drivers for this offence is not a priority.

So, if the traffic was clear, their occupation of the ASL was illegal?

no... occupation is never illegal.

only 'Entering' without due cause is illegal.

See 3rd Reich

This has been cleared up and explained in a number of threads. The problem here doesn't actually lie so much in the rules, but in how to enforce them. If you want to enforce the ASL boxes (or, rather, the associated stop lines), there has to be evidence that a driver crossed the first stop line while the light was red. As a result, you can never say to a driver whose vehicle is blatantly sitting in the box that they committed an offence unless a police officer has witnessed the driver committing the offence. I'm not sure, but I think this sort of offence can't be dealt with via CCTV yet in the way that banned turns and yellow boxes can, but I may be wrong.

Given the lack of traffic in front of the lights and the fact there's an amber before the red I find it very unlikely the cab and bike entered it to avoid running the red but I see your point about technicalities.

weird that this thread pops up today,
as INCIDENTALLY, on my ride into work, I saw two of these clowns on Waterloo Road actually giving an Addison Lee driver a little 'slap-on-the-wrist' of a speech as he had stopped in the advanced stop box.
of course, no actual ticket was issued - but rather the usual firm threat of 'next time'...
BOOYA.

Given the lack of traffic in front of the lights and the fact there's an amber before the red I find it very unlikely the cab and bike entered it to avoid running the red but I see your point about technicalities.

Yes, the technicalities are annoying. They defy common sense. However, as I've said before, I consider the concept of the ASL fundamentally flawed. (And, incidentally, of dubious utility for cyclists.)

simple solution to all this is staggered, cycle only light phases on a shorter overall light changing cycle.

/it makes semantic sense in my head...

I've said it before so I'll say it again. If I find a moped, motorbike, car, cab, lorry etc. in an ASL I just sit in front of them.

More than 900 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) of up to £60 issued to drivers and motorcyclists;
Over 400 FPNs of up to £60 issued to cyclists;

Number of pedestrians killed by cars & motorbikes a year - 600
Number of pedestrians killed by cycles a year - about 0.1

Those fines should be £3 for us, and £18,000 for cars, in order to be proportionate to the level of risk posed.

Number of pedestrians killed by cars & motorbikes a year - 600
Number of pedestrians killed by cycles a year - about 0.1

Those fines should be £3 for us, and £18,000 for cars, in order to be proportionate to the level of risk posed.

i'm digging your math skillz.
jus' sayin'

then your calculation needs to offset the fact car drivers are net contributors to the economy who produce wealth - not like your normal bike riding leech.
just saying

Well, I'll bite, although I know you're trolling: Lots of people riding bikes contribute lots to the economy. So there. :)

Well, I'll bite, although I know you're trolling: Lots of people riding bikes contribute lots to the economy. So there. :)

Oliver what do you think would happen to the british economy if you banned cars or bikes?

bikes = nothing
cars = the 1930's

then your calculation needs to offset the fact car drivers are net contributors to the economy who produce wealth - not like your normal bike riding leech.
just saying

I'm not sure that how you get to work has any bearing on how much you contribute to the economy when you get there, does it? Apologies if I'm missing some layer of irony here.

A lot of negative economic effects would follow a ban on bikes. However, they would be proportional to the percentage of cycling as a modal share of total traffic. The effect would be much more serious in a country with more cycling.

In Britain, the economic problems caused by excessive motor traffic (that damage the economy) would only continue. People would be less healthy, there'd be higher health costs, and productivity would certainly go down.

A ban on cars would obviously not be a good idea, but a very strong reduction in motor traffic would only be a good thing. Remember that motor traffic congestion costs the British taxpayer a bomb every year. Here's some research if you're interested:

http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1259/1/2004_25.pdf

(From 2004, there's something more up-to-date but couldn't find that just now.)

"The DfT report also includes a valuation of the cost to the British economy of all the death, misery and destruction that occurred on Britain's roads in 2009. That figure is £15.82bn the cost of quite a big war, by comparison the financial cost to Britain of fighting in Afghanistan from 2001 until now is put at £10bn."

http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/221549/227755/rrcgb2009.pdf

page 32

then your calculation needs to offset the fact car drivers are net contributors to the economy who produce wealth - not like your normal bike riding leech.
just saying

My bikes cost more than a lot of Londoner's cars and I bet I pay more tax than their owners.
I'm also singularly responsible for creating and distributing the entire planet's wealth*.

*may be the cycling fuel talking

I'm also singly responsible for merging and sitting on the entire planet's threads.

.

good news about the police.

and i have seen police pulling over drivers in the last couple of days.

but i am not a big fan of fines / stealth taxes / bans etc. they tend to make people resentful.

what i would prefer to see is more pro active health and safety principles applied to our public realm (aka the roads).

just posted about the CTF here, any news on what these guys have been up to more recently?

the Goog found only one recent story about a Ride London bicycle theft,

activity:

Hello
Looking for a forum user who got me to stamp 'Oliver' into a brooks, cycle task force police have just tweeted recovering a saddle with this name on it. I have a vague recollection of doing one with Oliver on, but no way of searching my messages content, only by user name or title...

No, it's not Oliver Schick.