I WOULD like to respond to Jon Kelly of Eastern Avenue, Littlemore, Oxford. You seem to have lost your sense of humour.

My comment about citizen’s arrests was a joke because “Oxford City Council is asking Thames Valley Police to grant powers to community wardens to fine and warn cyclists who break the law by Cycling on footways”, when they are abusing the system themselves!

For clarification to Mr Kelly, bicycles are, in law, carriages (as a consequence of the Taylor v Goodwin judgment in 1879) and should be on the road not footway. (Technically speaking, a ‘road’ is a ‘carriageway’).

Cycling on footways (a path at the side of a carriageway) is prohibited by Section 72 of the Highway Act 1835, amended by Section 85(1) of the Local Government Act 1888.

This is punishable by a fixed penalty notice of £30 under Section 51 and Schedule 3 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

Cyclists can ride on bridleways but not on countryside footpaths. To do so is a civil tort.

A cycle track means a way constituting or comprised in a highway, being a way over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way, that is to say, a right of way on pedal cycles (other than pedal cycles which are motor vehicles within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1972) with or without a right of way on foot (Section 329(1) Highways Act 1980).

The words in brackets were inserted by section 1 of the Cycle Tracks Act 1984. Cycle tracks may be created through conversion of a footway or footpath or newly constructed.

A footpath means a highway over which the public have a right of way on foot only, not being a footway (Section 329(1) Highways Act 1980).

Generally, this means walking routes away from roads, say in the countryside. A footway means a way comprised in a highway, which also comprises a carriageway, being a way over which the public has a right of way on foot only (Section 329(1) Highways Act 1980).

I hope this clarifies the situation for you but I must disagree with you that police ‘would only cycle on pavements if absolutely necessary’. In Abingdon they must find it absolutely necessary every single day.

JOHN J MONAGHAN, Cotman Close, Abingdon