Westminster council issuing 100 fines for badly parked hire bikes and pedicabs

"Since introducing fines last week, the council says it has issued 150 Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) of £100 each directly to Lime and Forest for dumped bikes that pose safety hazards to pedestrians. At the current rate, the council estimates it could earn £ 1 million in fines within a year. The council says any surplus from enforcement costs wouldn't go into the general spending pot, but would be spent on improving street safety and accessibility."

"Part of the difficulty for the council is that the fine is applied to the cycle firm rather than to the cyclist who dropped the bike off in the wrong place. To a degree, understandable, as the dockless bike business model assumes cyclists will always be sensible and intelligent when parking bikes, and ignored the obvious reality that a small but significant percentage are neither."

Westminster Council has started issuing £100 fixed penalty notices to dockless hire bike operators for badly parked or dumped bikes that pose hazards to pedestrians. The council reports issuing 150 FPNs directly to Lime and Forest since fines began and projects up to £1 million in fines within a year. Any surplus from enforcement will be spent on improving street safety and accessibility. Westminster says seizing and storing bikes is resource-intensive and that fines are a more direct deterrent. The council has demanded faster removal of obstructing bikes and stronger staffing in hotspot areas. Fining individual riders would require access to hire firms' cycling data. The council has also applied £100 fines and a PSPO to regulate pedicabs.

Read at ianVisits