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Pulled by the fuzz

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  • April 2, 2013 at 9:42 pm #18391
    therealsmallboy

    You’re not gonna believe this.

    On a club ride out of Sheffield, into Derbyshire and back again this evening the following occured:

    When we were on the road between Hathersage and Calver, just after turning right at the junction in Grindleford- we were pulled over by a police car.

    I say pulled over, but what actually happened was he wound down his passenger window, turned on his blues and started screaming at us that we had to ride single file- I shouldn’t need to explain that we took exception to this.

    So, after some exchange of words through the window of a moving police car, he pulled over and we obliged by stopping with him to see what ill-informed gems of made up law that he had up his sleeve. And gems they were.

    He started by puffing out his chest and shouting “right then, who was it that had a problem?”, which was (a threatening and b) wholly uncalled for. He went on to shout and spit about the highway code saying that cyclists had to ride single file and that we were in the wrong. We all know this is bollocks and tried to point this out to him, but he’d clearly made up his mind.

    He then went on to say that he had it all on camera so I asked to see it, he put it on the dashboard screen and I watched the back of a bus for 3 minutes- not a cyclist in site. Apparently we were “all over the road”, even though he couldn’t actually see us and we were riding 2-by-2.

    Then the cracker came- what I believe is a made-up story. PC ‘ I am the law’ recently attended a coroners hearing about a car that had made a dangerous overtake move on a blind bend and killed a kid in a car on the other side of the road that it crashed into. The nugget is that he blamed it on a cyclist on the inside that had- and I quote- “made the driver do it”!!!!!!

    It was eventually diffused when we pointed out that we were actually blocking the road now and that we disagree with everything he was saying. Surely, if we’d committed an offence at least one of us would have been booked?

    I think this is a simple case of someone in a car (this time a copper no less) getting frustrated at being held up and taking it out on the easiest, most vulnerable target. Us. It would be nice if they’d teach our police officers the law, so that when they attempt to relay it to unwary ‘offenders’ that they actually got it right.

    Just another case of the abuse of perceived power and the harassment and victimization of innocent cyclists.

    A complaint will be duly posted with the IPCC. If the other 4 riders would like to be included I think that will help prevent this ill-informed bully from picking on any more cyclists for taking in part in the sport that they love.

    More to come……..

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  • April 17, 2013 at 12:58 pm #725467
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    drfabulous0

    stumps wrote:bobmac892

    stumps wrote:
    bobmac892 wrote:
    Whilst I have no arguement with the article I would wish to say one thing, not everyone in a police uniform behave in this way. In fact some are even known to cycle themselves and have quite the opposite view to this example.

    Thank you, at last someone with a bit of commonsense. I could spout a myriad of stories of having dealt with, nearly being hit by and law breaking cyclists but whats the point ?

    In this day and age we come across bad apples in all walks of life and this is an example of such. It is not, however, a free for all to spout off which the author did not want.

    Let him amke his complaint and hopefully the officer will be spoken to.

    Can i just add its quicker to contact the force’s “professional standards” dept first rather than the ipcc as they will send it back to the force to investigate. If there is serious foul play involved then the force will pass to the ipcc for a full independant investigation but generally a force will deal with the issue such as described above. Hope that helps for anyone wanting to make a complaint.

    I can comment only from personal experience but there has been a lot of it over the years and I have found the police to be an organization of lazy, corrupt, self important criminal thugs, every single one of them. My immediate family alone have suffered not only apathy from the police but abuse, harrassment, assault and rape. Defend these bastards as much as you want but you are deluding yourselves, they are not the good guys.

    April 17, 2013 at 12:00 pm #725465
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    Sanderson

    colin267 – nope, we were
    colin267 – nope, we were riding in two lines, unless you saw our group passing another cyclist on the climb….

    April 17, 2013 at 6:47 am #725463
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    PJ McNally

    Karbon Kev wrote:The highway

    Karbon Kev wrote:
    The highway code to a policeman should be the same as ‘the knowledge’ is to a cabbie …

    Hmm – shouldn’t a cabbie know the highway code, too? Or is that too much to ask?

    April 16, 2013 at 2:51 pm #725461
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    colin267

    @ Sanderson – you weren’t by
    @ Sanderson – you weren’t by any chance one of the group I observed riding up the hill out of Grindleford on Fri afternoon, 3 abreast? We really don’t make it easy for ourselves sometimes, do we! 😐

    April 15, 2013 at 4:52 pm #725459
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    therealsmallboy

    Hmmm. He wouldn’t happen to
    Hmmm. He wouldn’t happen to have been 40 something, about 6ft, dark hair but greying would he?

    April 15, 2013 at 1:51 pm #725457
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    Sanderson

    Interesting to see this post.
    Interesting to see this post. Was in the Peaks this weekend with a group of around 20 riders (up from Essex to bag Holme Moss now it’s going to be a Tour climb!!)

    On the Friday we rode out via Calver and past Chatsworth. So very close to the location the OP was about. Had a queue of perhaps 15 cars behind us, the road is narrow and double white lined and we were travelling at 16mph or thereabouts, but we were going to turn off at Beeley (so probably hold up traffic for half a mile max).

    Got pulled up by an officer in a traffic car (BMW estate) who gave us an earful about our ‘duty of care to other road users’ (don’t know too many cases of people in cars being vulnerable to the actions of a cyclist…) and said we had to ride single file – not two abreast.

    I know which I consider safer for me. And agree with the points above about whether a slow moving farm vehicle or similar would have elicited the same reaction.

    Sadly wasn’t on the ball enough to get his collar number to make a complaint….

    April 4, 2013 at 10:10 am #725455
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    Stumps

    bobmac892 wrote:Whilst I have

    bobmac892 wrote:
    Whilst I have no arguement with the article I would wish to say one thing, not everyone in a police uniform behave in this way. In fact some are even known to cycle themselves and have quite the opposite view to this example.

    Thank you, at last someone with a bit of commonsense. I could spout a myriad of stories of having dealt with, nearly being hit by and law breaking cyclists but whats the point ?

    In this day and age we come across bad apples in all walks of life and this is an example of such. It is not, however, a free for all to spout off which the author did not want.

    Let him amke his complaint and hopefully the officer will be spoken to.

    Can i just add its quicker to contact the force’s “professional standards” dept first rather than the ipcc as they will send it back to the force to investigate. If there is serious foul play involved then the force will pass to the ipcc for a full independant investigation but generally a force will deal with the issue such as described above. Hope that helps for anyone wanting to make a complaint.

    April 4, 2013 at 9:33 am #725453
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    mad_scot_rider

    Quote:Do you whine when

    Do you whine when having to wait for tractors, horses or sheep?

    This is car/truck drivers we’re talking about so Yes – yes they *very* much do

    Didn’t you know it is the Dog-given right of all motor vehicle drivers to take any risks they like in order to get to the next set of lights or junction 5 seconds faster?

    April 4, 2013 at 9:22 am #725451
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    Dropped

    Gero wrote:Just because the

    Gero wrote:
    Just because the law says we can ride 2 abreast, doesn’t make it right to do so.
    Inconsiderate club riders in groups of 30 odd with massive q’s of vehicles behind them. I’d be cheesed off too.
    It’s why I choose not to ride with the club that I belong to.

    If you are in a group of 30 riders, that’s 15 riders at 2 abreast, the group will take up approximately 100 feet of road. In single file that’s 200 feet that the car/bus/lorry has to get past, so simple arithmetic shows that riding 2 abreast causes less delay. And so what if vehicles have to wait one extra minute to pass on a country road. Do you whine when having to wait for tractors, horses or sheep?

    April 4, 2013 at 9:21 am #725449
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    therealsmallboy

    bobmac892 I agree entirely.
    bobmac892 I agree entirely.

    Please don’t use my story as an excuse to voice generalised negative opinions against the police. This is the first time I’ve come across an officer with anything other than a positive attitude.

    He is a very bad example and I have written in with a view to having this particular incident highlighted and dealt with. Of course there are some examples above with similar experiences and they should be explored also, but lets not tar them all with the same brush.

    We don’t like it when people make generalised comments about us “bloody cyclists”, so lets not carry on the trend.

    April 4, 2013 at 8:42 am #725447
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    bobmac892

    Whilst I have no arguement
    Whilst I have no arguement with the article I would wish to say one thing, not everyone in a police uniform behave in this way. In fact some are even known to cycle themselves and have quite the opposite view to this example.

    April 4, 2013 at 8:22 am #725445
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    pirnie

    Also, it’s far harder to
    Also, it’s far harder to overtake one line of say 10 riders than a group of 10 riders riding 2-up. You’ve got effectively twice the length of vehicle to overtake, so it can actually make it easier to pass a line of riders in pairs

    April 4, 2013 at 8:15 am #725443
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    John_the_Monkey

    Al__S wrote:If the road is

    Al__S wrote:
    If the road is too narrow/twisty to be able to overtake a pair (or lines of pairs) safely and the cyclist isn’t riding in the gutter, there’s no way being single file makes it easier to safely overtake.

    This – absolutely this. If an overtake is made safely, it’s no harder to overtake a pair of riders than a single.

    April 4, 2013 at 7:49 am #725441
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    Al__S

    If the road is too
    If the road is too narrow/twisty to be able to overtake a pair (or lines of pairs) safely and the cyclist isn’t riding in the gutter, there’s no way being single file makes it easier to safely overtake.

    April 4, 2013 at 7:38 am #725439
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    nostromo

    Sounds to me that even if you
    Sounds to me that even if you were riding single file on that road, nobody should overtake until it was absolutely safe to do so.

    If motorists approached overtaking cyclists as if they were overtaking another car – IE waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic and moving out into the opposite lane – then it wouldn’t matter if riders were cycling two abreast would it?

    Unfortunately a lot of drivers believe they don’t need to slow down and wait to pass cyclists safely. That’s the problem.

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