A private-hire pickup did not create permission to enter the cycle lane (2026)

Case 2250413444 / 2025-12-22 / Adjudicator Herjinder Mann

Blake Hall Road

“There is no exemption for private hire drivers to enter cycle lanes.”

Herjinder Mann

Redbridge alleged entry into the cycle lane on Blake Hall Road on 20 June 2025. The motorist said they were working as a private-hire driver, collecting customers outside a pub, and had stopped there for the passengers' safety.

Herjinder Mann reviewed the CCTV and images and found that they showed the vehicle entering the cycle lane and stopping. Private-hire status did not provide an exemption for that movement. The appeal was refused on 22 December 2025 and the penalty was upheld.

The decision concerns reliance on the pickup and the driver's occupation, not a finding that every crossing of every cycle lane is forbidden. A statutory safe-and-necessary crossing exception or a relevant order provision would need its own facts. The published reasons do not establish such an exception here.

Before relying on passenger collection, identify the actual legal permission said to apply. A brief stop or a wish to make pickup easier does not answer evidence of prohibited entry. Where the circumstances support only mitigation, put those reasons to the authority without presenting them as a general cycle-lane exemption.

Source and case reference

Use case reference 2250413444 in the London Tribunals register to find the official decision. This commentary distinguishes the adjudicator's finding from a possible argument in a different case; previous tribunal decisions do not bind another adjudicator.