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Road Races (Amendment) Bill 2010 Second Reading approved 6. Mr Callister to move: That the Road Races (Amendment) Bill 2010 be now read a second time. The President: We turn then, Hon. Members, to the Road Races (Amendment) Bill. Again, a Bill down for Second Reading and this time in the hands of Mr Callister, please. Mr Callister: Thank you, Mr President. When I moved the First Reading, I perhaps may have taken the wrong approach for the reasons behind the Bill, because I was fairly brief and a bit clinical, perhaps. Maybe I should have begun by recognising the fact that one of the best racing cyclists in the world today represents the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish, a sportsman whose achievements have been recognised worldwide and also of course, by the Isle of Man Government and Tynwald and by the Town Council, who are to give him the Freedom of the Borough and very much by the wider world as well. Mark Cavendish has brought a considerable amount of positive recognition for the Isle of Man in the past few years, matching probably anything the Government has been able to achieve and I think a lot of people here, certainly myself, were most pleased to hear television commentators refer to him as ‘the Manxman’ – you do not often hear that internationally. The point is the Isle of Man has many young gifted cyclists. There are young people today whose ambition certainly will be to emulate the achievements of Mark Cavendish and we need to give them the maximum encouragement and support and provide them with the right facilities and opportunities to achieve international success. So in that regard, I think we should also give credit where it is due to Dot Tilbury and her team (A Member: Hear, hear.) and the devotion that they have spent over many years training and encouraging our people to want to be racers and want to be winners. The Isle of Man, of course, has the ideal terrain, in which cyclists can train. I think probably all Hon. Members would agree with me that we should provide the wherewithal to enable our young people to become top level achievers. I take no pleasure, Mr President, in bringing forward a Bill for such events as the Soapbox Derby, but the advice the Department has received, after getting conflicting advice, in fact, the final advice is that, in order to run the Soapbox Derby, there needs to be legislation and you can argue as much as you like with our legislative draftsmen, but that was the final conclusion that was reached. Maybe the learned Attorney would like to make comment later. However, That is where we are, so we are told that we will need to have this legal cover for such events as the Soapbox Derby and not only that but other matters as well, and indeed for time trials. The first reason for creating the Bill, of course, was to permit road closures in Douglas in fact, and not on the TT course as I understand it, for the Commonwealth Youth Games in September of this year. It was originally to be, and I think still is, for one specific Sunday for that event. Nevertheless, when legislative officers began to look at this Bill, they then widened it out to some other areas. That is the position that we are in. Of the comments that were made during the First Reading, Mr President, Mr Butt had a comment that as he thought it was primarily for the sports event in September that we could have a sunset clause for this. This has not been met well by the Department, for the very reasons I have explained earlier, that we need to do other events apart from the Commonwealth Games under this legislation. The Lord Bishop was not at all happy about the Bill in respect of church services and if the Lord Bishop wishes to bring an amendment forward to have some restriction on that – I have already discussed it with him – the Department would not have objection to what he is proposing. With regard to the time trials, and Mrs Christian referred that, the amendment would allow applications to be made to hold time trials on closed roads. However, the Department would restrict this to youth cycling events. (Interjections) I have referred to the sunset clause. Mr Lowey had a number of comments to make in which he was highly critical of the need for this legislation, and he did say that when he used to go running on a Sunday – I take it he does not very much do that now (Mr Lowey: Not any more.) – he used to see bunches of cyclists on the Tosaby Road (Mr Lowey: Absolutely.) getting ready for their time trials, (Mr Lowey: Yes.) and he felt what would happen now would be it would be illegal. (Mr Lowey: Yes.) Well, whether it is going to be entirely illegal is not clear, but certainly as far as the Sunday is concerned, we do need, I am informed, this legislation. Mr Downie supported this Bill at First Reading and quite forcefully, I think, in relation to some of the comments from other Members, but Mr President did have a comment to make about the mechanically propelled vehicle that he claims to be riding from time to time. It was defined in the United Kingdom Road Legislative Council 08 Mar 2011 Traffic Act 1988 as a motor vehicle driven by petrol, oil, steam or electricity, a mechanically propelled vehicle. The UK Countryside Act 1968, referring to bridleways, said, and I quote: ‘Any member of the public shall have, as a right of way, the right to ride a bicycle [not being a mechanically propelled vehicle], on any bridleway…’ There are two pieces of UK legislation, and there is a third. In 2003, the UK definition of a pedal cycle was changed, and this was on the Pedal Bicycle (Safety) Regulations 2003, Statutory Instruments 2003, No. 1101, which stated: ‘…“bicycle” means a two-wheeled vehicle that is propelled solely by the muscular energy of a person on that vehicle by means of pedals and has not been constructed or adapted for propulsion by mechanical power;…’ Mr Downie: You can have a trike, then. Mr Callister: Well, it leaves tricycles and four-wheeled bicycles up in the air as well, but nevertheless I think those were the main points that were raised at First Reading, Mr President. If there are any tricky technical questions, the Director of Transport, Mr Richard Pearson, is here with us today. I beg to move, Mr President. The President: Mr Downie. Mr Downie: I beg to second, Mr President, and in doing so let us just try and look at what we are trying to do here. The Department has been given legal advice that, for whatever reason, you cannot hold bicycle races or Soapbox Derby races on roads without there being a proper legitimate reason. In another words, technically they are closed to vehicular traffic other than those taking part in the event. My understanding is when they do have cycle racing, there is pedestrian access as they are not considered to be too much of a problem. But let us just try and see what can be made out of this amendment. I know the Bishop’s amendment has not been moved yet. I do not want to get us drawn into a situation where we are putting that many restrictions on things that we have been served up, I think, with the worst of a bad deal here because we have been told that we have got to bring legislation in to cover this. At the same time, I think what we have got to try and do is make the legislation as common sense and practical as we can. For instance, I would not like to see restrictions brought in on somebody wanting to do a time trial or a bicycle race or a Soapbox Derby on a Sunday afternoon because that to me is keen family and sporting time, and as long as the event is taking place away from churches... You might want to have a hill climb in Tholt y Will on a Sunday and there are no churches out there. You might want to have an all-terrain mountain bike race and as part of that you want to use part of one of these small roads that service the Mountain Road, so you want to have that particular section closed for safety purposes and this piece of legislation would then cover all those different things that need to be done legislatively, to deal with the problem that the Department has got. I think that if there are events taking place near places of worship, that there is a commonsense approach to be taken here. The organisers themselves realise that they do not want to interfere with other people’s time and they can either avoid them or come to some other arrangement. There are plenty of places in the Isle of Man where you can have time trials or small cycle races without interfering with people’s religious activities which they might want to follow on a Sunday. Mr Callister mentioned the Commonwealth Games. We are only talking about one event on one particular day. On most Sundays when I get up about seven o’clock, quarter past seven, I go down to the Quarterbridge and there are usually a good selection of 30 or 40 cyclists there who are going off on a ride.

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