Pavements safe to ride on for sensible cyclists....

Interesting piece on the front page of this weeks Courier about a clamp down on Tonbridge cyclists on the pavement. Not sure whether the story is front page-worthy but that's a different matter. Apparently there have been a number of people cautioned and fined which reminded me of when I was a kid and was nicked for riding on the pavement and without lights in the dark. I tried to reason with PC. Cox (I still remember his name as his daughter was at my school) but he was having none of it, he marched me home to lecture me in front of my parents. I still say that I was only doing the safe sensible thing for a nine year old; after all I had no lights and therefore it would have been doubley dangerous to ride on the road! These days it's much more dangerous on the roads; they have become hugely more busy and often clogged up. That certainly discourages me from letting my kids cycle say across the railway bridge near the station, which they'd have to to get to the cycle lanes around the park area. On the subject of cycle lanes someone was quoted, in the Courier article, saying that pedestrians are always walking on the cycle half of the footpaths. You can't really blame them for that when the cyclist signs are virtually all faded off the paths and too far spaced. What was the point of spending all those countless thousands of council (and therefore our) money on developing cycle lanes in the first place if they are not going to be adequately maintained. In these times of austerity isn't it time to adopt what some Scandinavian and Northern European towns do already: that is, quite simply, to let cyclists ride thoughtfully and respectfully on the pavement. If there are people on foot they go slower or, if it's too crowded, dismount altogether; if there's no one about then they can pick up the speed a bit. There'll always be some people who abuse this, just like some people run along the pavement with disregard for others and some walkers barge you out of their way as if they own the pathway. The vast majority of runners, cyclists and walkers though respect each other. When my children were younger I used to ride with them on the pavement, often right past the Police Station in Tonbridge. Was this dangerous? Come off it: following a kid on a bike with stabilisers for an experienced bike rider does not present a menace to the walking public although, of course, technically I was breaking the law. So what I'm saying then is, like everything, there are times when it's safe and times when it isn't but, on the balance of things though, except on busy town centre pavements at peak times, there isn't usually a problem.
The other question, and allied to this whole topic, is how come there is no cycle path linking Tonbridge to Tunbridge Wells? Many school children would be healthier and probably happier if they could safely cycle between the two towns. Some already do of course but, unfortunately, they are riding illegally on the seldom used pavement between Quarry Hill and Southborough. Surely at least on semi rural pavements like this one it should be made legal since most, in my view, sensible cyclists do it anyway. Sometimes it's the public who make the laws by doing the safe thing which, over time, becomes the norm. I've a feeling that cycling on pavements will be one such case....