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Police to get 93 page guide on how to ride a bike… oh, no they're not!

93-page tome covers everything from "deployment into a junction" to need to "rear scan" while officers are "engaged with the bicycle"...

Britain’s senior police officers were in danger of becoming a laughing stock last night after it emerged that they plan to give officers a 93-page guide showing them how to ride a bike. However although its length and the language used in the guide have been held up to mockery at least one highly respected cycle safety expert says it probably isn't long enough.

The two-volume Police Cycle Training Doctrine, drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Oficers and due to be rolled out nationwide on a mandatory basis, has been seen by the Sun newspaper which says it includes advice such as how to stop and get off the bike safely, and not tackling suspects while still “engaged with the bicycle.”

In its editorial today, the newspaper points out that "the Bible takes less than one page to account for God's creation of the universe. And the original of the American Constitution is just four pages long."

Officers reading the manual will also learn how to apply their brakes and the art of avoiding obstacles including kerbs and rocks. Helpful diagrams include one showing “deployment into a junction” – that’s turning left or right to you and me.

They will also be told of the need to “rear scan” – in other words, look behind them. All of which will hopefully help them safely proceed in an easterly, or whichever, direction.

Other helpful advice includes wearing padded shorts to ensure “in-saddle comfort" as well as the need to take enough food and water on board.

And it’s not just uniformed officers who are the target of the guide. Undercover officers are advised that they may have to do away with a helmet to avoid being spotted, but the guide cautions: "This lack of protection must be noted and a full risk assessment of the required role to be undertaken."

Mark Wallace, campaign director at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, told the Sun: "This is an absurd waste of police time and thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.

"Police officers are perfectly capable of riding a bike,” he added. “It's no wonder we haven't enough on the beat if they are having to spend time and energy wading through this nonsense."

The newspaper also quoted a Home Office source, who said: "Most of the red tape the police complain about is actually created by the cops themselves. This is a particularly bad example."

An ACPO spokeswoman told the paper: "This guidance may have been drawn up by ACPO but we haven't fully approved it yet."

A short time later they added, "“It was put forward by a group of well meaning police officers with an interest in this area. ACPO will not be taking it forward.” Thus shooting the story down in flames.

The police cycling guide that never was might have been the subject of some knockabout fun from the Sun and some predictable venting from the Taxpayer's Alliance but  it did have a serious aim. indeed at least one cycle training expert reckons that it probably isn't long enough. Speaking on the Today programme on R4, Dave Holladay who has advised the Strathclyde Police on the need for cycling training pointed out that police cyclists needed to be cycling "exemplars" doing everything with a high level of skill and proficiency and should be trained to the same standard as a Class 1 police driver or motorcyclist.

Mr Holladay also noted that the training manual for US MTB mounted police squads was longer and while nobody but ACPO and the Sun have read the manual in question the picture in the paper makes it look more like a Power Point presentation than 93 pages of closely worded text. 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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5 comments

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MauriceM | 14 years ago
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Of course the police should have a proper instruction manual - they certainly need to be role models - but why waste so much money reinventing the (cycle) wheel (apologise for awful pun) when the Stationery Office already publish "Cyclecraft" which is the principle reference for Bikeability - the National Cycle Training Standard.

Surely a few extra pages for their specialist requirements would be all that is required!!

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stever | 14 years ago
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It's the ridiculous official-ese jargon only policeman and people unsure of themselves in press conferences use, that grates. 'The man was last seen proceeding in a westerly direction and was wearing a heavy moustache. We have reason to believe that this may have been a false moustache.'

I had to chuckle at the last time I saw two PCSOs wobbling along on the pavement at dusk without lights. So I'd say yes, they do need some sort of manual. Just one written in Plain English.

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OldRidgeback | 14 years ago
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Why don't they just import the US version and then edit it slightly to account for the fact that we use the other side of the road?

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Barry Fry-up | 14 years ago
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I was against this until i heard that the taxpayer's "alliance" was too - i feel it's my moral duty to endorse it now. they suck pretty bad.

on a less confrontational note, when the TPA say that "Police officers are perfectly capable of riding a bike", what's their basis for this? every day we read about the declining standard of cycling in this country, which goes in hand with the declining standard of every other type of vehicle control, which in terms stems from our self-centred, postmodernist outlook where the I is more important than the We.

Anyway, I digress again. Why shouldn't police officers have some kind of cycling manual?

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Denzil Dexter | 14 years ago
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Never simple is it, I heard Dave Holladay on R4 too I though both he and Boris made some good points. As so often on the surface this looks like political correctness/health and safety gone mad, but think about it a little more and the points made by Dave Holladay and Boris Johnson, who was on too (didn't hear all of him though), made sense.

A policeman does have to do it properly and he or she cant afford to fall off, or be knocked off, while pursuing a criminal, and that probably does mean they need to know more about how to get off a bike properly than the rest of us, particularly when you also remember that they've got various bits of equipment to carry too. Holladay was right they should be expected to be off the same standard as a police driver or motorcyclist.

It seems to me this story works for the Sun, and whoever leaked the report to them, because they don't take the bicycle seriously as a form of transport, and John Humphrys on Today didn't cover himself in glory either - he definitely wanted to mock which skewed the tone a bit when Boris was talking about the disproportionate number of women cyclists killed by HGVs in London.

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