I would dearly love to see Boris Johnson and his TfL heavies take you to court over unpaid fines because… and I guarantee you this will happen… EVER SNIGLE MEMBER of the people organising this Olmypics are going to say they were a resounding success, from Cameron, to Johnson to Coe…
So armed with that evidence, which will be helpfully recorded for you countless times by ITV, the BBC and the rest of the world’s media, how can they prosecute you for ruining the event by getting riding in an unused lane…
Then you can argue, that as a Londoner why should you pay, your taxes were used to put on this event so how can they justify penalising further for hosting such a “great games”
Then you’ve got the defence of you being one poor individual being hounded by the authorities when Boris Johnson and his legal lackeys are publically humiliated on a daily basis by every single embassy vehicle whereby they refuse to pay the congestion charge… surely if you are an affront to the smooth running of the city, you expect to see the American Amabssador in the dock next to you shortly as well…
THen if that doesn’t work, just keep appealing… imagine the crappy healdines that they would have to endure with you spilling all those beans to the press every time they tried to accuse you, a small unobtrusiove motorcyclist, progressing through traffic swiftly and not causing a blockage as the CCTV evidence will undoubtedly show, of being the meance to the Olympic experience?
The cost of trying to recoup £130 from you by going to court costing tens of thousands would NEVER make it past accounting scrutiny… and they’d drop it…
I’d shoot him if he took my stuff… harsh but fair, new Tory policy some dick turns up to nick yourself you can use reasonable force to F his day up…
Yeah, the test case thingy, does prove this is just another excercise in me moving my mouth and not really achieving much… well I say mouth, I guess finger tips over the keyboard is more accurate… ho hum, back to sh!t telly.
Now what you should do is ride in the lanes with a banner on your bike saying…“My City, My Games, My Right to Get to Work”.
Thus you are protesting, and your rights will be protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.
While the Government can trample your rights in Law, hence being able to ban protesting in Parliament Square, on the grounds of; national security; territorial integrity; public safety; to prevent disorder or crime; for the protection of health or morals; to protect the reputation or the rights of others; to prevent the disclosure of information received in confidence; or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary…none of these apply.
The “right” to take part in a sporting event doesn’t exist, it is not a protected right, and therefore that ground cannot be used to justify infringing upon your right to protest.
Now they can infringe on your rights as proscribed in Law, however, the Games Lanes fines are not about denying you the right to protest, but are in fact about not allowing everyone to drive in the Olympic Lanes, therefore they are not a restriction on your right to protest proscribed in law.
This would be far more difficult for the authorities to deal with, especially when it came to actual enforcement through the Courts…they could quite easily still arrest you and drag you off using the spurious “breach of the peace” that the Police love to use whenever they don’t want people doing stuff that will embarrass the Government.
Kind of makes me wonder how they were legally able to change the nature of pre existing roads from public rights of way to private lanes with fines. Isn’t it difficult to even close a road for a day? They can issue fines, sure, they can do anything, but like those car park fines, just because a fine is sent doesn’t mean you legally have to pay it.
Maybe it is just spin and praying nobody uses them because if they do the Gov knows their fine threat was an empty one?
The OP is about breaking the law and getting away with it. I’m just saying it’s not quite as simple as, “well if everyone does it, then there is nothing they can do.” They (the establishment) can prosecute everyone.
On the subject of protesting about not being able to use the Olympic lanes, the Met have banned taxi drivers from protesting on the 27th July as it ‘may result in serious disruption to the life of the community’. The protest was due to start at 5pm and they have been banned from protesting from between 4pm - 3am the following day on any part of the ORN and also states that they must remain south of the Thames between those hours.
