Safe Speed Forums

I found this article in local community paper, The Shankill Mirror.

Youth fined for bike "wheely"

A North Belfast father is enraged that the PSNI issued his son with his first traffic fine at the age of 18-not for any motoring offence but for pulling a "wheely" on his push bike.

The father explains that the incident occured on Saturday 27 August at 11.30am. His son was on the road close to their home on his new bicycle which is a stunt bike.

"He cut across the road and with no traffic present at the time, pulled a wheely", says the father. "The next thing he heard was a police siren behind him. He thought they were chasing someone else, then realised they were after him". His son was issued was issued with a £30 Fixed penalty Notice for 'reckless cycling'.

"I'm absolutely raging about this", the father continues. "The lad was causing no danger to anyone. It's just petty policing".

He adds that the police vehicle which gave chase was parked illegally itself, sticking out of an alleyway entrance and blocking the footpath so that pedestrians had to walk around it onto the road.

He has also found the ticket information to be incorrect;from information on the internet, code 049 written on it relates to a defective tyre, whereas reckless cycling should be 247.

"I intend to fight this all the way", he adds. He believes the stress of it all has had a detrimental effect on his health recently. " They are just a jumped-up bunch of traffic wardens", he adds.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

And the police wonder why the public have no respect for them anymore

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

now if they could just do something about the two kids on scooters who were pulling wheelies in front of me whilst waiting for the lights...

Someone needs to make their mind up.

If there was no traffic what was the police siren attached to? I'm pretty certain beat bobbies don't have them in their helmets.

Exactly, this is the problem the Police face, damned if they do, damned if they don't. The father should have been thanking them for pulling him up for it.What if he did it when it had been busy, what would have happened if he had come off of his bike in the path of a car? His father would probably be bleating about the speed of the traffic etc etc.

Like so many little Johnny's nowadays, their parents will believe anything and everything they tell them. Hells Bells, if I had been pulled up by the Police when I was younger, I wouldn't have had time to explain, it would have been a crack round the ear.

The reason why the lad probably got a ticket anyway was that he could have been a gobshite.

There's a time and place for everything and the road's not it.

Quite so John. It's all down to the home really - but the Police can
make some difference.

I live in a London borough, Brent, where the Met Police are very hot on
Gun Crime. They may be 'realistic' about drug-use, perhaps even
taking a progressive and liberal approach to drug-dealing - but only if
nobody's killed. Yes, as soon as anyone's shot then they go bananas
and Operation Trident wades in.

I was in Eltham a few Saturdays back; that's in the Met Police Area too,
and the same Police Rate, but there I saw two of those new Police
Community Support Officers, glamorous young ladies, pull up a youth
for riding his bike on the pavement. I hadn't seen that for fifty years
and I told those officers so. They replied that they had pulled up five
such miscreants just that day.

So there you are. The police have to have allocate their resources and
they have to draw the line somewhere. It's just that in Brent they draw
the line at shooting people but down in Eltham they draw the line at riding
bikes on the pavement.

I suppose that we will all have our own different ideas about what is
effective policing.

They would not be happy bunnies if they did this in front of me

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Indeed the case. Very few accept that their own could be so silly.



I know the feeling well.... On the odd occasions or so when I got a letter to take home to my father about something or other I did to upset Sir at school - I'd get another hammering on my backside.... In those days - getting into trouble with Sir was as inevitable as getting a bruise on the football and rugby fields




I should imagine he was indeed gobby with choice language .... like the little girl on the quad bike in that episode of traffic cops. She could not have been playing to the camera... nine year old girls should not know those words anyway ...

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Well the police car was obviously on the road....



As already pointed out by others - depends on the speed and type of wheely he pulled and the nuisance factor to neighbours who may have complained about past episodes hence the police watching the activities. We do not lurk in residential alleyways looking for kids pulling wheely stunts outside their home as a routine...

Which seems to be backed by:


And if pedestrians were around then the wheely activity may have conflicted with the pedestrians - especially if he had been riding on and off the pavement prior to the wheely.... which we do not know but we all know kids and dafter "pedal pushers" do it...

Also begs the question as to why this kid did not notice this police car lurking in the alley way with its nose hanging over the alleyway's junction with the road.



Nit picker! Perhaps the bike had a defective tyre as well

Still I am sure they will amend it in court....




Oooh! Ouch! that's cutting ! Only causing him stress because he is getting into a lather instead of accepting son dropped a bit of a clanger in front of officers who may have been there because of possibly complaints about his son's wheelies in the past. If his son has realised there is a time and a place and the best place to use his stunt bike is on the stunt pad provided in the local park (as is case around here and elsewhere) and not on the road where he may collide with residents and their cars - then he should just chalk to experience and learn from the "'orrid " experience.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Hmm... I think my sympathies lie more with the Feds in this case than anyone else. Sure the Kid shouldn't have been pulling wheelies in the road, but his Dad has made a bigger Pillock out of himself (compared to his son) by going off on one.

People do find it very difficult to accept that they (or their loved ones) are ever in the wrong.

Liebchen. Ist so true. Cannot really add to to your comment or IG or the others except to agree with each one of them.

The Papa does come across as the muppet who challenge teacher of blame teacher because his child ist unteachable. Parenthood.. sigh... ist the hardest job in whole world - nicht?

As you are aware (you "met" most of the real rebels over the road" ) am from huge family. Have one big sister - Krissi und two even bigger brothers und loads of cousins. We not breed out und we all have families with lot of kittens... Ist not easiest job in world to bring them up. You have to choose right diet, right school, righ amount of discipline, know when to hold back und when to go ahead with the punishment as well. Too much discipline lead to rebellion und not enough also lead to rebellion. Ist skill to know und we make mistakes on occasion -but as with everything else - courage und progress rest with acceptance und the learning to move on. This Papaneed to find this courage und accept child made silly mistake und both to learn und move on from it. Ist not a mistake which shadow his life as we all know youngsters und wheely stunts ist part of youthfulness. I hope he lurk here und read us. As Mama I understand his anger at son being fined for being a lad. As person who understand nuisnace factor of the wheely - understand why police fine for this. As person who know what ist like to lose relative und as person who suffered injury und saw effect on her family - I would say be thankful police brought to heel before get out of hand und just learn. Send your son for lessons in stunt cycling und so was.

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Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Not seen it mentioned yet, but if unchecked, same youth might well graduate to doing the same thing on a motorcycle.

Once saw a motorcyclist dump his girlfriend on her backside on a busy junction, because he pulled away too quickly pulled a wheelie, and she slid off the back.
She was NOT very pleased!
A month later, in a similar incident, a rider lost his bike out from under him, same junction, and HE ended up sat in the road.
Presumable they dont LEARN to do this on junctions!!

My son was involved in littering an area behind our home while "building a den".
A neighbour reported that there was broken glass, so I went up with my son and a bin bag - and found the littering to be extensive.
Son owned up to his part, and listed his partners in crime, so I went to each of their houses, and invited the parents to have their children join in the clean up.
One denied that her two girls could have been involved, so I called son to the door, and asked him if ther WERE involved, which he confirmed.
I suggested she ask her two angels in our presence - and when she did so, they sheepishly owned up! However the mother was not prepared to let her children join in the clean up "in case they got themselves dirty"!!

I also had to tackle another neighbour head on, who had given the (young) children an old TV set to play with - the source of the glass.
She thought it would be better than having the binmen take it!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I once witnessed a very funny incident.
A guy on a big bike stopped at the lights decided it was time to show off to some girls standing nearby, so when the lights changed he did a wheelie. Except that he overcooked it by a country mile.
I still chuckle when I remember the sight of the bike standing up vertically with him running behind it, holding onto the handlebars for dear life - until it fell completely over backwards.
He must have felt a right plonker as he skulked away with what remained of his pride and joy.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Monday night, 7:25pm. I'm in the car. Approaching me is a shadowy figure. Somebody (soon to be corpse) is riding towards me on a bike with no lights, wearing black while on the phone.