Greater Manchester Police has apologised after one of its Twitter accounts advised cyclists “not to weave in and out of traffic at speed” following the region’s second cycling fatality in a week.
The Manchester Evening News reports that following a collision on Eccles Old Road in Salford on Friday afternoon, 18-year-old Olivia Wojciechowska was left trapped under the wheels of an HGV. She was freed by firefighters, but later died in hospital.
The previous Sunday, Vicky Myres was hit and killed while riding on Stockport Road in Timperley. A man has been charged with causing her death by dangerous driving.
After Greater Manchester Police’s Radcliffe Twitter account had linked to a story about the incident that resulted in Wojciechowska’s death, user Wednesday Jones asked: “Getting to be one a week. Any suggestions as to how to stop this?”
GMP Radcliffe responded: “Drivers to give the cyclists room to manoeuvre and cyclist not to weave in and out of traffic at speed.”
The comment drew a furious response, but GMP Radcliffe defended the comments, saying they were general and not specific to this particular incident. “I would not be allowed to comment on the cause of this accident because I didn’t know the facts and it would jeopardise any prosecution etc.”
Jones told the Guardian she had written a letter of complaint to GMP chief constable, Ian Hopkins, as well as to Burnham and her MP.
Transport for Greater Manchester’s cycling tsar, Chris Paul, who will be working closely with Chris Boardman in his new role as the region’s cycling and walking commissioner, said:
Awful answer. Just awful. An 18 year old on a bike died. Come on @gmpolice get a grip of your twitter feeds. @MayorofGM @BeverleyHughes1
— Chris Paul (@ChrispLOL) September 2, 2017
Yesterday, Chief Inspector Tariq Butt, of the GMP Roads Policing, Travel Safe and Mounted Unit, said: “I would like to apologise to anyone offended by [the tweet]. This is a tragic case in which a young woman lost her life and I would like to send my sincere condolences to her family at this very difficult time.”
Chris Boardman said: “It is completely unacceptable that people lose their lives on roads in Greater Manchester when they are simply going about their day.”
He added: “The mayor has made a commitment to cut casualties on the road, and I see the priority as evidence-based enforcement and improving road design. I have already met with the GMP roads leader to discuss that the enforcement resource focuses more squarely on those that can do the most harm to others. We want to encourage an attitude in all of us of looking after other road users, especially those that are more vulnerable than ourselves.”
18 thoughts on “Greater Manchester Police apologises after suggesting that cyclists not ‘weave in and out of traffic’ following second death in a week”
Haven’t these police got
Haven’t these police got anything better to do than tweet victim blaming rubbish? I’d much rather they go around keeping a check on people speeding or using mobiles whilst driving.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Just the sort of perpetrator blaming mentality that the authorities are there to stamp out.
Quote:
There are a lot of chief inspectors at GMP so should really read, ‘a chief inspector at GMP’…
StraelGuy wrote:
There are a lot of chief inspectors at GMP so should really read, ‘a chief inspector at GMP’…
Sorry, meant to include his full job title. Edited. Cheers for pointing that out.
I can’t see vehicle drivers
I can’t see vehicle drivers changing their attitude towards us cyclists anytime soon.
Given the fact that most drivers’ (not all) have the patience of about 1 second.
The only way forward for us all is segregation between cyclists and motor vehicles. I know that it’s happening partially, but it’s not enough to stop cyclists being killed on a daily basis.
It all comes down to money in the end, this government lack the will, plus they can make much more out of the motorist.
i have a motorbike, but prefer cycling.
@Jimnm – I disagree. It’s
@Jimnm – I disagree. It’s only a very small minority of drivers that cause problems for cyclists, so I don’t see why we can’t share the roads without conflict.
What we need is driver education and proper enforcement.
I propose letting Chris Boardman have a big pile of money to produce some short educational videos and advertising time on major channels – that should cover the education part.
Secondly, provide monetary incentives for people to catch bad driving on video and/or get the police to enforce the Highway Code.
hawkinspeter wrote:
+1
hawkinspeter wrote:
Could I add a proposal that requires town and city planners to ride through every infrastructure project multiple times during peak traffic to ensure that it is safe for users. Road layout designers might give more than a few seconds of thought to protecting vulnerable users if they have first hand experience
hawkinspeter wrote:
Good, but I’d rather allow cyclists to carry handguns and use them on drivers who threaten their life. Self-preservation is the strongest force acting on us, and since there is no threat to a driver in a collision with a cyclist, their motivation to avoid such an event is not strong. Knowing that the cyclist is armed and capable of shooting back might just concentrate the drivers’ minds.
burtthebike wrote:
Do you want USA? Because that how we get USA.
burtthebike wrote:
Hmmm. How much will these handguns weigh?
hawkinspeter wrote:
as he’ll be working with The Cycling Czar, I think his job title should be changed to The Cycling Rasputin
hawkinspeter wrote:
we’ve had some 50 years of this cheap rubbish in my lifetime and nothing has changed… in fact, things are now much worse…
we used to have public information films during station/add breaks like ‘think once, think twice think bike’… but ever since the Tories got in, these films are not shown anymore…
Paul_C wrote:
What we need is driver education and proper enforcement.
— Paul_C we’ve had some 50 years of this cheap rubbish in my lifetime and nothing has changed… in fact, things are now much worse… we used to have public information films during station/add breaks like ‘think once, think twice think bike’… but ever since the Tories got in, these films are not shown anymore…— hawkinspeter
So say between 1997 and 2010 we had positive/constructive PIFs under Labour?
I recall under the last Labour regime they had campaigns to blame kids for their demise, ‘Gory Story’ back in 2008/9 that was rolled out in schools and put out on TV was one such that I personally directly opposed to and contacted the relevant authorities only to be flicked off and ignored despite making a FOI request for facts to back up their implication that kids not wearing hi-vis after school were at fault if they were struck by a motorvehicle or that it would in fact stop them from being hit.
what about those victim blaming PIFs in the 70s, oh wait, can’t have being cos Labour were in power.
it doesn’t matter which lot are in power, they are all crap and clueless with respect to road safety and campaigns for such and that will never change.
“Yesterday, Chief Inspector
“Yesterday, Chief Inspector Tariq Butt, of the GMP Roads Policing, Travel Safe and Mounted Unit, said: “I would like to apologise to anyone offended by [the tweet]. This is a tragic case in which a young woman lost her life and I would like to send my sincere condolences to her family at this very difficult time.””
Note that this carefully worded statement does NOT apologies for the actual tweet, or the underlying attitude. It only apologises for the offence taken. So, a classic non-apology.
Quote:
Just a minor change required to this. Cyclists register with their local constabulary and a random selection are armed for a week. The ‘are they armed or unarmed’ thinking would take a week or two to settle in and some manners to prevail.
Hamster wrote:
Just a minor change required to this. Cyclists register with their local constabulary and a random selection are armed for a week. The ‘are they armed or unarmed’ thinking would take a week or two to settle in and some manners to prevail.
From my experience the police
From my experience the police either don’t want or have their hands tied when it comes to these things.
Went to the police with a video of a car squeezing by me at a traffic island (the car drew alongside me just prior to the island and forced me out of primary position), and passed me right at the island….. and the police said “because you can’t prove how close they were to you when they passed” (as my camera was mounted on the handle bars) “we don’t have enough evidence to do anything”. And because you didn’t have any footage of the driver we can’t prove who was driving.
wait what??? a 1.8m wide car passing a cyclist where the road is 2.4m wide…. and you can’t prove how close they were to me?
Given that if I was hugging the kerb just over 50% of my bike would be over the road…. so as an absolute maximum I had 40cm of clearance (2.4m road width- 1.8m wide car – 0.2m of handlebars = 0.4m clearance max)…. whereas from my position on the road in reality it was less than 20cm of clearance when they went by me.