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The problem is that it won’t always be enforced that way. For example: in the city of Melbourne, there are sometimes signs instructing cyclists to dismount (e.

The problem is that it won’t always be enforced that way. For example: in the city of Melbourne, there are sometimes signs instructing cyclists to dismount (e.g. at railway level crossings), or that you aren’t permitted to cycle in such-and-such a place (e.g. railway platform). Their illustrations always depict an upright bicycle. I ride a recumbent tricycle, which the Road Safety Road Rules considers to be a bicycle. The reasons for dismounting simply don’t apply: my wheels won’t get caught in rails and I won’t fall over, and in fact dismounting will make matters worse. And the reasons for not cycling in most of the so-marked places are seriously diminished and heavily counterbalanced: I can easily and safely travel at pedestrian speed, and I will be far more of an obstruction on your thoroughfare if you require that I stand up and awkwardly push my vehicle along, steering only with difficulty (normally mostly by nudging one of the front wheels with one foot as I walk), taking up a lot more space and not going straight or at the same speed as others. Common sense says I should ignore such signs and assess each situation individually. But I tried applying common sense like this on a railway platform once and was severely threatened with a fine. Meanwhile, mobility scooters are really pretty similar to me in contextual characteristics (my vehicle interacts in such situations much more like one of them than like an upright bicycle), but they’re fine. (Aside: in the state of Victoria, the road rules classify my vehicle as a bicycle; but in New Zealand, the road rules classify it and bicycles as cycles, and only mention bicycles in one section, about wearing helmets. No attention is drawn to the use of a different word, but it’s clear that tricyclists are genuinely not legally required to wear helmets—which does actually make some sense, as the majority of scenarios where a helmet is beneficial to a bicyclist either don’t apply, or apply vastly less often, to recumbent tricyclists.)

Helmut10001 3y ago
We recently had this problem in Sweden: There are parking spaces where "Caravans" or "Campers" are forbidden (because they either tend to stay there all day or sleep) - we have a VW T4, it is considered of class "car" in Germany. We still sleep in it. Are we allowed to stay on these parking spaces? We decided: No. Our interpretation was that overnight-stays are unwanted by the local population or government. But the sign wasn't clear. The pictures on these signs also showed no vans, just big campers.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  To me, it is as simple as the questions in the link. It is a van. You sleep in it. It is clearly a camper van. In my opinion, anyone who disagree are doing so to be edgy or cause problems just for the sake of it. Of course, there are a lot of those kinds of people.
spuz 3y ago
Sounds like the railway staff are indeed enforcing the spirit of the law by allowing mobility scooters on the platform. If I had to guess why your tricycle was not allowed it's because the staff perceive your tricycle as a potentially very fast moving obstacle on the platform which the mobility scooter obviously is not. They are probably more concerned about the safety of others than yourself when they apply that rule. In my opinion analysing the intent of rule is the right way to go about enforcement even if it means different people will arrive at different conclusions.
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  When visibly travelling at the same speed as pedestrians (… even when there are no pedestrians around!), and still insisting when you explain why dismounting is worse for everyone? No, it’s simply applying the rule because it’s a rule. The Protective Services Officers (cut-rate policemen) that are enforcing these sorts of rules are seldom interested in nuance. On another occasion I was fined by PSOs for walking along beside the railway line, along a route that I understood to be a public right of way and which was not in any way blocked save an easily-walked-around vehicle barrier at the far end that they’d installed in the last year or so, and which our family and others had been traversing since before I was born. But no, they’d decided that wasn’t allowed any more, didn’t actually tell the locals, and ignored the explanation and an expressed willingness to not do it again (and the appeals process declined to listen too). I suspect and hope that regular police would have listened and just issued a warning to not use that route any more.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    >No, it’s simply applying the rule because it’s a rule. Thought experiment: A: Put your head down on the pavement and close your eyes or B: let your toddler stand on the pavement. Who you'd rather have approaching you or the toddler at the same exact speed: Someone walking, someone on a tricycle, someone walking with a tricycle - all three with their nose in their phone or whatever people do when they are not 100% there. There's a clear difference that you for some reason seem to be angry at and want to ignore.
Dah00n 3y ago
>Common sense says I should ignore such signs and assess each situation individually. Does it? How is it different from Car A driving the speed limit and Car B driving 20 over because "I have a big SUV/racecar/motorcycle"? Laws are normally made knowing there are situations where it will not always seem common sense, but if we follow your logic we would have hundred of thousands of rules, like a complete set for each type of car, bike, etc. I see it as common sense that of course the same rules apply to your tricycle, unless it is for a disabled person.
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  Cycles that are not upright bicycles (e.g. recumbent bicycles, upright tricycles, recumbent tricycles, quadricycles) are (completely naturally and understandably) discriminated against in legislation because they’re not so common. Although the law classifies them as bicycles, many laws and rules that affect them are made clearly not considering their different characteristics—their size, their stability, their handling, things like that—and end up mandating things that make sense for upright bicycles but are for these other cycles counterproductive to the clear or likely (depending on the case) intent of the law. Your example is patently unreasonable and a completely different thing. Legislation defines various classes of vehicle, and changes the definitions and categories over time to match need. But it’s not good for the legislation to explicitly say “Category A encompasses Items B and C” and then to write a law for Item B but apply it instead to Category A. In this specific case, it’s probably mostly happened by sheer accident because they named Category A “Item B”, and so you can never tell whether the intention was to cover Item B or Category A. This is why I like what New Zealand has done: by giving the category the name cycles and not bicycles, they’ve kept the opportunity to apply laws to bicycles specifically and not other forms of cycles, in cases where that makes sense.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    I agree that a form of category might be a good idea, but I disagree that the example is a different thing. Another example could be banning loud or polluting vehicles in the city centre, as is happening in many cities. They use the same sweeping rules as in "No bicycles" and allow EVs "because they are silent and green as we all know" while in reality EVs are more noisy than a similar car at city speeds and up. Most people are not aware of this, but if you are, you could just as easily feel discriminated against in a small, new, diesel car. However, it would, in my opinion, be too difficult to have a society with the amount of rules needed to fix these kinds of cases. (It is the low friction tires on EVs and the extra weight that cause the added noise. A stupid problem that could easily be fixed with normal tires on EVs.)

Helmut10001 3y ago

We recently had this problem in Sweden: There are parking spaces where "Caravans" or "Campers" are forbidden (because they either tend to stay there all day or sleep) - we have a VW T4, it is considered of class "car" in Germany. We still sleep in it. Are we allowed to stay on these parking spaces? We decided: No. Our interpretation was that overnight-stays are unwanted by the local population or government. But the sign wasn't clear. The pictures on these signs also showed no vans, just big campers.

Dah00n 3y ago
To me, it is as simple as the questions in the link. It is a van. You sleep in it. It is clearly a camper van. In my opinion, anyone who disagree are doing so to be edgy or cause problems just for the sake of it. Of course, there are a lot of those kinds of people.

spuz 3y ago

Sounds like the railway staff are indeed enforcing the spirit of the law by allowing mobility scooters on the platform. If I had to guess why your tricycle was not allowed it's because the staff perceive your tricycle as a potentially very fast moving obstacle on the platform which the mobility scooter obviously is not. They are probably more concerned about the safety of others than yourself when they apply that rule. In my opinion analysing the intent of rule is the right way to go about enforcement even if it means different people will arrive at different conclusions.

chrismorgan 3y ago
When visibly travelling at the same speed as pedestrians (… even when there are no pedestrians around!), and still insisting when you explain why dismounting is worse for everyone? No, it’s simply applying the rule because it’s a rule. The Protective Services Officers (cut-rate policemen) that are enforcing these sorts of rules are seldom interested in nuance. On another occasion I was fined by PSOs for walking along beside the railway line, along a route that I understood to be a public right of way and which was not in any way blocked save an easily-walked-around vehicle barrier at the far end that they’d installed in the last year or so, and which our family and others had been traversing since before I was born. But no, they’d decided that wasn’t allowed any more, didn’t actually tell the locals, and ignored the explanation and an expressed willingness to not do it again (and the appeals process declined to listen too). I suspect and hope that regular police would have listened and just issued a warning to not use that route any more.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  >No, it’s simply applying the rule because it’s a rule. Thought experiment: A: Put your head down on the pavement and close your eyes or B: let your toddler stand on the pavement. Who you'd rather have approaching you or the toddler at the same exact speed: Someone walking, someone on a tricycle, someone walking with a tricycle - all three with their nose in their phone or whatever people do when they are not 100% there. There's a clear difference that you for some reason seem to be angry at and want to ignore.

Dah00n 3y ago

>Common sense says I should ignore such signs and assess each situation individually. Does it? How is it different from Car A driving the speed limit and Car B driving 20 over because "I have a big SUV/racecar/motorcycle"? Laws are normally made knowing there are situations where it will not always seem common sense, but if we follow your logic we would have hundred of thousands of rules, like a complete set for each type of car, bike, etc. I see it as common sense that of course the same rules apply to your tricycle, unless it is for a disabled person.

chrismorgan 3y ago
Cycles that are not upright bicycles (e.g. recumbent bicycles, upright tricycles, recumbent tricycles, quadricycles) are (completely naturally and understandably) discriminated against in legislation because they’re not so common. Although the law classifies them as bicycles, many laws and rules that affect them are made clearly not considering their different characteristics—their size, their stability, their handling, things like that—and end up mandating things that make sense for upright bicycles but are for these other cycles counterproductive to the clear or likely (depending on the case) intent of the law. Your example is patently unreasonable and a completely different thing. Legislation defines various classes of vehicle, and changes the definitions and categories over time to match need. But it’s not good for the legislation to explicitly say “Category A encompasses Items B and C” and then to write a law for Item B but apply it instead to Category A. In this specific case, it’s probably mostly happened by sheer accident because they named Category A “Item B”, and so you can never tell whether the intention was to cover Item B or Category A. This is why I like what New Zealand has done: by giving the category the name cycles and not bicycles, they’ve kept the opportunity to apply laws to bicycles specifically and not other forms of cycles, in cases where that makes sense.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  I agree that a form of category might be a good idea, but I disagree that the example is a different thing. Another example could be banning loud or polluting vehicles in the city centre, as is happening in many cities. They use the same sweeping rules as in "No bicycles" and allow EVs "because they are silent and green as we all know" while in reality EVs are more noisy than a similar car at city speeds and up. Most people are not aware of this, but if you are, you could just as easily feel discriminated against in a small, new, diesel car. However, it would, in my opinion, be too difficult to have a society with the amount of rules needed to fix these kinds of cases. (It is the low friction tires on EVs and the extra weight that cause the added noise. A stupid problem that could easily be fixed with normal tires on EVs.)