Cyclists fined over £1,000,000 in London police crackdown

The Metropolitan Police's Operation Safeway crackdown on cycling traffic offences saw riders fined a total of over £1,000,000 in 2013 and 2014.

The Evening Standard's Josh Pettitt reports that 15,786 fixed penalty notices were handed out to cyclists in 2013, more than twice the 6,286 of 2012.

Riders were fined for offences such as jumping red lights, ignoring traffic signs, failing to stop for officers, not having lights, or carrying passengers, and levied £50 fines totalling £789,300 .

Operation Safeway was launched last November in reaction to the deaths of six riders in a two-week period, a tragedy researchers are still at a loss to explain.

The Met deployed 2,500 officers at 170 junctions throughout London and handed out 14,000 fixed penalty notices or reports for summons to drivers and cyclists in six weeks.

In that period, 4,085 FPNs or reports for summons were handed to cyclists, over 90% for three offences: riding without lights, contravening traffic signals and riding on the pavement.

The most common driver offences were failing to wear a seatbelt, using a phone and contravening traffic signals.

Operation Safeway has continued into 2014, with 5,851 cyclists fined in the first seven months of this year, an additional £292,550 bringing the total to £1,081,850.

A Metropolitan police spokesman told road.cc that figures for the number of drivers fined in that period were not available because the Evening Standard had asked only about cyclists. They're getting back to us.

The Met concedes that because Operation Safeway is about cycling safety it may appear to unevenly target cyclists because driver offences can be picked up in other ways.

Superintendent Robert Revill, of the Met’s Roads and Transport Policing Command, told the Standard: “It  is not about punishment or persecution, it’s about creating awareness. We enforce traffic legislation robustly. Officers will be out in force, watching and dealing accordingly with anyone breaking the law.”