Segway pavement ban stands as Yorkshire rider loses appeal

Phillip Coates’s prosecution has been seen as a test case by users of the distinctive two-wheeled personal transporters.

In January, District Judge Michael Rosenberg ruled at Barnsley Magistrates’ Court that the Segway is a motor vehicle under the meaning of the law and therefore it is an offence to ride one on the pavement.

Coates, 51, of Park Avenue, Cudworth, South Yorkshire, was fined £75, and ordered to pay £250 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Today, in a judgment handed down at the High Court in Leeds, the conviction was upheld by Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Langstaff.

The case has attracted nationwide interest from campaigners for wider Segway use.

They say they are effectively barred from using them on pavements if they are classed as motor vehicles yet cannot drive them on roads because they do not meet all the requirements of a motor vehicle for use on the highway.

Former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik turned up at an early hearing to offer his support for Coates.

Coates was summonsed after he was spotted riding on a pavement in Pontefract Road, Barnsley, in February by a civilian police inquiry officer.

He was prosecuted under Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835. It was alleged he “wilfully rode a motor vehicle, namely a Segway, upon a footpath or causeway by the side of the road, made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers”.

The district judge said the case hinged on the legal definition of a “motor vehicle” which, he said, was “a mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on roads”.

Judge Rosenberg said the crux of the case was whether a Segway was “intended or adapted for use on roads”.

The district judge said: “Although this is by no means an easy matter to determine, I am inexorably driven to the conclusion that I am satisfied to the required standard that the Segway is a motor vehicle and the allegation is therefore proved.”

1The case was referred to the High Court as an “appeal by case stated” which means the judges were being asked to determine whether the magistrates court applied the law correctly.

They were asked to consider whether the district judge should have considered whether Segways can be ridden on pavements in other parts of Europe; whether he failed to take into consideration the intention of the manufacturer; and, crucially, whether he made an error in concluding that the Segway is a mechanically-propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on the road.

Both judges agreed with the magistrates’ court decision in relation to all three questions.

Lord Justice Munby said: “In my judgment, a Segway falls within the definition of a motor vehicle.

“As such it is ... a carriage for the purposes of section 72 of the 1835 Act.

“So the answer to the third question posed for our consideration by the district judge is no.

“It follows that in my judgment the appellant was properly convicted.

“He was riding his Segway on the pavement in the sense in which that word is used in section 72.”