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Metropolitan Police New Scotland Yard.jpgLondon police stopping cyclists without helmets in "advice & education" exercise
Met Police stopping unhelmetted cyclists to provide “advice and education”
As part of Road Safety Week, the Metropolitan Police is stopping cyclists and lorry drivers in three locations in central, east and south London to offer “education and advice” to cyclists who are seen riding dangerously. Conrtoversially, the police are also stopping cyctlists who are not wearing helmets.
A spokesman for Scotland Yard told road.cc that cyclists were being stopped “where there are concerns about their behaviour - for instance cutting corners, performing other dangerous manoeuvres or wearing headphones while riding.”
He also acknowledged that officers were stopping riders who were not wearing helmets. While there is no legal requirement to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle in the UK, the spokesman said: “If you want to be safe it’s a very good idea to put one on.” That’s an opinion that some in the cycling community might perhaps take issue with.
London Assembly member Jenny Jones told road.cc she had contacted the Met and a superintendent had agreed that helmets and high vis are not required by law.
Baroness Jones said: "The Met’s ‘advice’ on cyclists wearing a helmet and high vis is not based on any scientific research. As an informed cyclist I ride my bike without either. Their efforts would be better focussed on enforcing the laws we have, for example on not driving vehicles while using a mobile, not driving a vehicle into ASLs when the lights are red, which would make our roads much safer.
"Clearing our roads of illegal and dangerous drivers has to be the priority, not hassling cyclists who are obeying the law."
Scotland Yard said that the intention was not enforcement and when asked if, for example, a cyclist riding through a red light would be issued a fixed penalty notice, said that no fixed penalty notices had been issued to cyclists. “It’s about advice and education rather than cracking down,” said the spokesman.
A total of 45 officers are involved in the operation, and police are also stopping lorry drivers. Their vehicles have been checked for any issues and in one instance a lorry was found to have a dangerously over-inflated tyre that left it unfit to continue its journey.
According to LBC, police at one location have stopped 20 HGVs and found a total of 60 offences, including vehicles in dangerous condition and drivers who had been working too long.
Chief-Superintendent Glyn Jones, who is in charge of the operation, told LBC: "If you're going to cycle in London, wear a helmet, wear high-vis, make sure your bike has the right lights, don't wear headphones and obey the rules of the road.
"That way you will be a lot safer."
In a ten-day period to last Thursday, five cyclists were killed in collisions with large vehicles on London's roads. It is not known how many of them were wearing helmets or whether their riding was a factor in the crashes.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
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The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
- mctrials23 1 hour 13 min ago
As i've said before, the police should be sued for a lot of money when someone they have knowingly ignored has gone on to commit a serious crime....
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Good stuff. Now do it on cycleway C9 through Hammersmith to Chiswick.
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It's technically allowed but it's not known as "London's Orbital Car Park" for nothing.
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You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
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Used car salesman is a complete attention-seeking plank....
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I don't know if they're any better, but they's certainly become more boring.
- FionaJJ 6 hours 51 min ago
At risk of being cynical, and stereotyping the police, it's so they don't have to leave the comfort of their panda cars and pursue on foot when...
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130 comments
Is it naive of me to find this truly shocking?
Tomorrow they are going to be out with rulers to measure the lengths of young ladies skirts whilst fining homeowners for being burgled and lecturing stab victims for not wearing kevlar vests.
On a moderately more serious note, can anyone confirm if these pulls are being done by real coppers or PCSOs?
This seems a bit daft.
Why are the police stressing hi-viz and personal protective equipment as if they conferred some sort of magical protection against lorries? Cyclists could avoid injury in many incidents in which they are not at fault by adopting better road positioning - well clear of the door zone, far enough out from the gutter to register properly on the radar of following motorists and avoid nasty debris etc.
At the moment my helmet is in Ireland and I'm in Germany - I failed to stuff it into my suitcase when I was coming over and am only starting to miss it and considering replacing it now that temperatures are starting to dip below zero. Polystyrene has insulating properties, the straps would stop the peaked cap I wear underneath from being blown away (the peak keeps snow off my glasses) and a helmet might offer some useful protection if I slid out on a patch of ice and whacked my head off a kerb.
I have a well rehearsed dialogue in my head, ready for the day a gormless police officer offers me 'advice' on my choice of headwear whilst riding my bicycle.
At the moment its a bit rough round the edges and needs to be a little more polite than the current version, which is essentially some advice they go away and attempt a physically impossible manoeuvre with a sensitive part of their anatomy.
I am a firm believer in wearing a helmet, but it is down to choice, it is not a legal requirement. Until it is I don't think that it is down to the police to stop riders and tell them. That would really, make me sense they are targeting me because I ride a bike. Over inflated tyre, oh please let the air out gently
It could be bulging due to over-inflation, just letting air out wouldn't necessarily rectify the situation.
If Chief-Superintendent Glyn Jones believes that, "if you want to be safe it’s a very good idea to put one on”, then he should look at the statistics for head injuries amongst motorists, and perhaps be stopping drivers for not wearing helmets too.
I'm assuming that bike riders that are cycling safely and within the law / highway code aren't the ones being stopped for not wearing a helmet... Not likely to get a polite response from me if I'm trying to explain why I've legitimately chosen not to do something, if Plod then misses someone running a red!
"vehicles have been checked for any issues and in one instance a lorry was found to have a dangerously over-inflated tyre that left it unfit to continue its journey" - I'm no mechanic, but how hard could this have been to rectify?
Stopped for not wearing a helmet?
FFS show me the evidence a single one of the recent fatalities in London would have been saved by a helmet.
Get a grip.
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