I managed to get a £60 fine for riding my bike in a bus lane. I’d recently seen posters about how wonderful it is that Motorcycles are now allowed in bus lanes for an 18 month trial.
But there is small print. And you have to read it while you’re riding your bike and trying to avoid pedestrians, other vehicles and slippery, wet drain covers. You have to check for the presence or absence of a tiny motorcycle symbol on tiny blue signs sporadically placed somewhere along the bus lane.
Here’s the comment I left on the motorcycles in bus lanes survey
The signs telling you whether it is allowed to ride a motorcycle in a bus lane are small and hard to see.
I was fined £60 for riding in a bus lane; this never happened before the trial.
Suggestion: allow motorcycling in all bus lanes. This will be safer because I will not have to strain to see the small signs and I will have to filter close to oncoming traffic less frequently.
I also learnt that they have people whose job it is to watch CCTV images looking for transgressions such as mine. You’d think real people like that would use a bit of judgement. I got my fine on the day of the tube strike after giving my wife a lift to the train station. Like many people I was making an unfamiliar journey – some leeway would be nice on such a day. In the photo I was sent of me in a bus lane, there is no bus in sight.
But to an official, the letter of the law is all that matters, never mind the spirit of it. Not getting in the way of a bus is no defence.