This morning's commute and other commuting stories

My point is more that if you uphold that pushing a bicycle while walking with it by your side is propelling in an illegal way then for many it's basically impossible to ever pass that sign.

True, but the alternative is that if you don't consider it propelling a vehicle then you open the door for lots of shenanigans (e.g. everyone dismounting at red lights and pushing their bikes through) and having to create more laws (or more amendments) to close all of those loopholes.

A lot of the law works by being vague about what is illegal and turning a blind eye to the things that are, by strict word of law illegal, but obviously not dangerous/stupid/etc.

Another example being the No Cycling sign and the absurdity that, by the way it's worded, it's only illegal to ride past the sign, but dismounting and pushing past before remounting and riding on after the sign seems to be fine.

It's one reason why there are too many lawyers in the world. The problem is that the alternative would require even more lawyers.

A large part of why nobody goes to court over this is the expectation and promotion of the idea cyclist should "just pay the fine" when stopped and not stick up for themselves as much as others would.

The original case for Crank vs Brooks (this wasn't the original case, this was the appeal) is a good example.

Text of original judgement quoted from here: http://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58598/

"
The witness while pushing her bicycle on the pedestrian crossing was knocked down by a motor car being driven by the defendant. The intention of the witness was to remount the bicycle on the other side of the road to continue her journey home.
The justices accepted a submission that there was no case to answer and they ask this court's opinion whether they were right in law in dismissing the information on the submission that a person pushing a bicycle was not a ‘foot passenger’.
"

So the original decision was that it was OK for the motorist to knock down the person crossing a zebra crossing because they were pushing a bike and that made them not a 'foot passenger'.

How did a judge let that go?

You are also inadvertently redefining what 'riding on the pavement' is as it's also going to be worded as 'propelling your bicycle along the pavement'.

No, see the first few lines of this: http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/pushing.html

Section 72 of the Highways Act 1835 provides that a person shall be guilty of an offence if he :

"shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot-passengers … or shall wilfully lead or drive any … carriage of any description … upon any such footpath or causeway ".

Section 85 of the Local Government Act 1888 extends the definition of "carriage" to include "bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes and other similar machines".

"Leading or driving" clearly does not apply to a bicycle. It would apply only to other types of carriage drawn by animals, or to a horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, cattle, truck or sledge (which are also referred to specifically in Section 72). The only basis of the offence would therefore be if someone pushing a bicycle were deemed to be "riding" it.

So for pavements there is already distinction between pushing it (if this reduces to propelling a vehicle) and actually riding it as the offence seems to be 'riding' the bicycle, not just propelling it.