Bike Monopoly 22: Chance 2 of 3

We've selected "Drunk in Charge" Fined £20 as our second Chance.

Under the Licensing Act 1872 (we learn from bikeforall.net's handy guide to cycling and the law) it is an offence to be drunk in charge of a bike. Just as it is an offence to be drunk in charge of a cow, and we certainly wouldn't condone such drink-driving. But it seems the law is never enforced.

More recently, the Road Traffic Act of 1988 makes it illegal to cycle on a road or in a public place if 'unfit to ride... that is... incapable of having proper control' though drink or drugs.

You can't be breathalysed or asked for a sample, any more than a pedestrian or horse can. So - as long you have proper control of your bike - you can enjoy a drink or two and cycle home.

Combination locks can be useful here. If you're too drunk to remember the combination, or to be able to work the fiddly barrels, you're not fit to be cycling anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm
(a) off soon to cycle in Poland, where the penalties for drunk cycling are somewhat bizzarely the same as for drunk driving - so better go by car if you're thinking of a heavy session, cycling could be dangerous with all those pissed drivers - and
(b) going to set up a bar called Moderation, so that I can truthfully tell the doctor I only drink in Moderation.

Bike Monopoly 7: Chance 1 of 3

Most Chance cards seem to be there to chivvy you round the board - advancing to Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Marylebone Station, Mayfair or Go, or going back three spaces. It's another of those itineraries you can only do conveniently by bike.

For our first of three Chance squares in this trip round the board, though, we've chosen Speeding Fine £15. The point being, of course, that you can't be done for speeding on a bike, any more than you can on a horse or a skateboard. There is no such offence. Not that it stopped police at Weymouth recently trying to book cyclists for 'speeding' on the seafront, or police in Bournemouth setting up traps to catch 'speeding' cyclists.

You could be had under other laws - 'pedalling furiously', for instance. There's a neat roundup of the law as it applies to cyclists at the trusty Carlton Reid's bikeforall.net website.

But if you're not being furious, you can set off as many speed-camera flashes as you can, and they can't touch you. The fastest I've ever been on a bike was a rather scary 48mph on a 30mph (long, straight, downhill, clear) road in the Peak District. The fastest reported speed I've ever heard was a friend-of-a-friend who reckoned he did 71mph as a courier down some underpass in London.

Yeah, yeah. You know those people who immediately top anything you say? You've got a black dog, they've got one blacker. In fact, their dog is so black, no X-rays can escape its surface. Not even Hawking Radiation.