Mike Penning: The Home Office does not hold this information. How the police enforce the offence of cycling on the footpath, including any particular campaigns, is an operational matter for their discretion.
Mike Penning: The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates’ courts, found guilty and fined for offences relating to pedal cycles by gender, age group and police force area in England and Wales, from 2003 to 2013 (the latest available) can be viewed in the table 1. The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates’ courts, found guilty and fined for offences connected with pedal cycles...
Mike Penning: The department receives correspondence from MPs and members of the public about the police enforcement of the offence of cycling on the footpath. The Home Office has issued no formal guidance or instructions to the police on this offence. The enforcement of this offence is an operational matter for the police, as determined locally and based on local priorities.
Mike Penning: The Cycle Safety Stakeholder Group is a sub-group of the Cycling Stakeholder Forum. Issues of significance raised at the Cycle Safety Stakeholder Group are promulgated to the Cycling Stakeholder Forum. Ministers have been present at all three meetings of the Cycling Stakeholder Forum. The safety sub-group met on 6 March 2012, 19 March 2012 and 15 May 2012. The DfT was represented at...
Mike Penning: ...Paper: “Strategic Framework for Road Safety”, and this sets out our approach to continuing to reduce casualties on Britain's roads. We are currently working with stakeholders through both the Cycling Stakeholder Forum and Cycle Safety Stakeholder Forum; and the Safety Forum is currently working on a list of ideas and actions to propose to Ministers.
Mike Penning: Cycling is very popular in this country, and becoming even more so. The Government support The Times campaign. I have met many of those involved, and we support most of the things The Times has called for. The sort of roadworks my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) was talking about would not be affected by such cycling measures, however. We are trying to make sure that...
Mike Penning: The Department for Transport sponsors a set of questions on the NatCen British Social Attitudes survey. This contains questions on people's confidence about cycling on the roads and whether they believe it is too dangerous for them to cycle on the roads. In 2011, this survey achieved interviews with 3,311 adults in Great Britain. This response is not large enough to produce robust statistical...
Mike Penning: We take the issue of cycle safety very seriously. The Department for Transport collects data on all personal injury road accidents reported to the police. Data on all individual accidents in the years 2005-10 is available to download at http://data.gov.uk/dataset/road-accidents-safety-data Data for 2011 will be uploaded in late summer. These data are used widely by local authorities across...
Mike Penning: The Department has received representations from CTC and other cycling organisations, Freight on Rail and a small number of individuals who have concerns about the potential impact of longer lorries.
Mike Penning: The hon. Gentleman raises an enormously important issue. However, the question was about the height of trailers. I accept that there are other issues and I am more than happy to meet cycling representatives and the industry, as I do on a regular basis. He raises a serious issue, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the height of trailers.
Mike Penning: ...the beeping and not do what they should, which is to see whether there is a cyclist. However, we are looking closely at this issue, and we will work closely with everybody in this House and in the cycling fraternity to ensure that we make it as safe as possible for cyclists.
Mike Penning: ...of the roads I am responsible for are part of the national road infrastructure, and I hope there are no cyclists on that part of the infrastructure. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: cycling is vital not only to local commuting and enjoyment but to the health of the nation. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes...
Mike Penning: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has had no discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department on this issue. The enforcement of cycling offences is, however, an operational matter for individual chief officers of police.
Mike Penning: I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 10 October 2011, Official Report, column 110W. In addition, the Minister responsible for cycling policy, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), has recently established a cycling stakeholder forum which will, among other things, be looking into how best to tackle the issue of real and perceived danger of cycling.
Mike Penning: ..., available on the Department for Transport website at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2011-06 Since the consultation closed the Department has received further representations relating to cycling and road safety. These representations were taken into account in my decision to launch a 10-year trial of 1800 longer semi-trailers, and to appoint an independent consultant to monitor...
Mike Penning: The Government's consultation on whether to allow an increase in the length of articulated lorries was widely circulated to interested parties including cycling bodies, motoring organisations, local government bodies (the Local Government Association and the and Welsh Local Government Association) and the Rail Freight Group and rail freight operators. In support of the consultation, the...
Mike Penning: There are relatively few regulations governing the use of cycling—only five out of over 400 in the whole of this section of the red tape challenge. However, we are still interested to hear what cyclists have to say about those five—and we have recently met with representatives of British Cycling, CTC and the Bicycle Association of Great Britain to discuss the red tape challenge. We are...
Mike Penning: I would be delighted to meet with representatives of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group to discuss road safety issues of interest to cyclists. We share the objective of improving cycling safety and I would be interested to hear the group's views on how the Government can best support the delivery of this objective.
Mike Penning: ...we drive on the roads today come from racing and the investment made in research and development by the great manufactures of this country. That is particularly true of cars, but also of motor cycles, for which, sadly, the safety trends are going in the wrong direction. My hon. Friend is right to touch on the fact that this is a deregulation issue. I am also Minister responsible for...
Mike Penning: ...direction. Although we had only a 2% increase last year in motorcycle use, the motorbike death rate has increased by 4%, which is going in exactly the opposite direction of all other motor and cycling deaths. I have therefore announced a review, which is ongoing, of the motorcycle test. As my hon. Friend is aware, our undulating roads are a big problem for motorcyclists as well as car...