I imagine that it’s pretty difficult for your average urban bicyclist to achieve speeds approaching urban speed limits, but assume a special case (such as a school zone). Is there a precedent for a bicyclist being ticketed for speeding?
Coming off of the “World Famous Slickrock Bike Trail” is a long hill with a stop sign. The cops bust cyclists all the time for speeding and running the sign. I believe that the speed limit is 20MPH and in a full tuck, you can do nearly twice that.
In California, bicyclists have to follow the same rules as motorists.
From personal experience, in Davis, Ca, it is quite common to be ticketed for speeding, especially on the UC Davis campus. But I’ve had friends ticketed out on regular streets, especially some of the racers.
The ticket wasn’t for speeding though.
In the UK, bicycles are not governed by the speed limits, which are only for motor traffic.
However, there is an offence called “riding furiously” (I love that!), and section 29 of the Road Traffic Act also says:
" If a person rides a cycle on a road without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, he is guilty of an offence.In this section “road” includes a bridleway."
But riding over the speed limit is not, in and of itself, an offence. (I often break the speed limit by a few mph going over Tower Bridge - the limit is 20mph but when the road is clear I can usually do about 22-23.) I’ve only set a speed camera off once, going down Lower Thames Street when it was a 20mph limit…
A guy at work claimed he was ticketed for doing 45 in a 35-mph zone, caught by radar. “He must have been shooting some motorist going the other way,” he said. In court, he told the judge, simply. “Your Honor, if I could ride 45 miles per hour, I’d be in the Olympics!” Case dismissed.
Depends - if it was on a decent downhill, maybe. I’ve hit 39mph on a mountain bike with knobbly tyres; I’m sure 45 on a road bike is doable. I don’t think radar guns are really tested for cyclists though, I would have thought with the smaller surface area you’d be less likely to get accurate returns…
Yes Ive recieved one traveling down hill in Hallowell Maine on a ten speed.
25.00 worth of ticket.
The policeman I passed hada good idea on how fast I was going. 15 miles an hour over the posted 25 MPH.
Bicyclist in Central Park (NYC) have been ticketed for speeding. The bicyclists try to warn each other if the cops have set up a speed trap.
What I said about the UK situation is true for public roads, but a lot of parks (e.g. the royal parks of London) have byelaws relating to bike speed limits, and I know several people have been fined for speeding in Richmond Park, for one.
I have done that exact very thing. Coming off an overpass through a 20 mph school zone, I got ticketed for 5 mph over (the officer said he clocked me at 27). It got dropped in traffic court when I contested and the officer didn’t show up.
It is definitely possible for a cyclist to “speed” on city streets. As long as it is reasonably flat and you have no to little headwind you can easily get up to 40 kph. With a moderate tailwind you can, with effort, go 50 kph. Finally, with a good tailwind and some strong legs you can make 60 kph (but that is really pushing it and you can’t sustain it for more than a kilometer or two). However, in the normal run of things, it isn’t possible for a cyclist to “speed”.
That said, my max on flat ground is 62 kph, but that was with a terrific tailwind - and the flat ground was tilted in my favor. For myself, a good average speed on flat ground that is a sustainable pace over say 20 kilometers is 33-38 kph (dependent upon wind direct and speed). Even a persistent 5 kph headwind will seriously impede your speed.
Next summer when I cross Canada I hope to be able to average 22-28 kph (I’m going with the girl, hence the lower speed) for the whole trip.
Not just surface area, but reflectivity. If I understand correctly from the research I did when buying a radar detector, whomever is using it aims for the headlights, since they’re retroreflectors. The license plate is a good bet, too, but just about any other surface on the front of the car is going to be at to oblique of an angle to get a return to the gun.
A decent cyclist can hit 35 mph without much trouble so it would be easy to break a 25 mph speed limit. And there is a city in Ohio that has issued tickets on bike paths.
52.5 mph down the Devil’s Tail while riding the Epic in 2006
They warn you that speed limits apply. I don’t know what the limit is on that road, but actually being out in the country it might be 60mph, so I may have been legal.
In Japan it’s definitely possible to ticket a cyclist for speeding, but almost never done (when the police stop cyclists for anything, it’s usually running reds or riding at night without lights).
On a side note, in the UK you can be prosecuted for being “drunk in charge of a bicycle”.
That’s also true in Japan, but IIRC, it has the same penalty as driving a car drunk. Which in Japan is pretty severe. That’s what I was told, anyway. I haven’t read the applicable section of law for myself.
And also for riding on motorways, even if you’re members of the Kenyan cycling team 
UC Santa Cruz is on top of a hill, and populated by bicycle loving hippies.
Cops hang out on the hill and hand out tickets daily. I also have friends who have received reckless biking tickets and biking while intoxicated tickets. As mentioned before, California bicyclists are required t follow normal traffic laws.