Cyclists could face 20mph speed limits and may need number plates, after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps flagged a shake-up in road laws.
Less than a fortnight after vowing to create a “death by dangerous cycling” law that will treat killer cyclists the same as motorists, Mr Shapps said he wanted to stop certain behaviour on the roads.
He told the Daily Mail: “Somewhere where cyclists are actually not breaking the law is when they speed, and that cannot be right, so I absolutely propose extending speed limit restrictions to cyclists.
“Particularly where you’ve got 20mph limits on increasing numbers of roads, cyclists can easily exceed those, so I want to make speed limits apply to cyclists.
“That obviously does then lead you into the question of: ‘Well, how are you going to recognise the cyclist? Do you need registration plates and insurance? And that sort of thing,” he told the paper.
Mr Shapps said he is proposing that there should be a review on how to track cyclists who break the law.
The Highway Code and Road Traffic Act speeding limits only apply to motor vehicles and their drivers. While local authorities can impose speed limits on cyclists, it has been rarely done.
The Department for Transport refused to provide comment to the PA news agency on Mr Shapps’ interview.
Department officials did acknowledge to the Mail the flagged measures would require cyclists to have number plates or other identification markings for enforcement purposes.
Mr Shapps told the Mail that while he doesn’t want to stop people from getting on their bike, we should not “turn a blind eye” to cyclists who break road laws, speed and “bust red lights” and “get away with it”.
It comes after Mr Shapps pledged to create a “death by dangerous cycling” law to “impress on cyclists the real harm they can cause when speed is combined with lack of care”.
The move will close a legal loophole which means that cyclists who kill pedestrians can only be jailed for two years.
Under Mr Shapps’ proposal, the new law would be added to the Transport Bill due to be put before Parliament in the autumn.
