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Metropolitan Police New Scotland Yard.jpgLondon flooded with police in road safety crackdown
Central London was today flooded with police in the Met has described as a major road safety operation involving 2,500 officers this week, aimed at making busy London junctions safer.
Around 650 officers were deployed at 60 major junctions in London today. The police presence is planned to increase to 2,500 officers in 166 locations during the week, and may carry on until Christmas.
There have been widespread reports of drivers being ticketed for stopping in advanced stop line ‘bike boxes’ and of cyclists being fined for running red lights and riding on pavements.
Superintendent Rob Revill of the Safer Transport Command, said: "Our aim is to reduce the appalling number of people who die or are injured on London's roads each year. Every road death is a needless tragedy that wreaks devastation for the victim's friends and family. Every serious injury is life-changing and distressing.
"We are doing this by enforcing traffic legislation robustly and at every opportunity. Traffic and Safer Transport officers will be out in force, and even officers who don't specialise in traffic policing will be watching and dealing accordingly with anyone they see breaking the law.
The police initiative, dubbed Operation Safeway, comes after the deaths of six cyclists in London in a two-week period earlier this month. Brian Holt, 62 was hit by a lorry on November 5, and hours later Francis Golding, 69 was struck by a coach; Mr Golding later died of his injuries.
On November 12 Roger De Klerk, 43 was hit by a bus in Croydon, and there were two fatal collisions the following day. Venera Minakhmetova, 24 was hit by a lorry at the notorious Bow roundabout, and hours after the roundabout had been the scene of a protest against the recent deaths in London, Khalid al-Hashimi, 21, was hit by a bus near the other end of Cycle Superhighway 2 in Whitechapel. On November 18 Richard Muzira, 60 became the sixth cyclist to die so far this month when he was hit by a lorry.
Tales from the road
Riders’ accounts of encounters with officers on patrol this morning have been a mixed bag, with reports of officers not quite seeming to know the rules around advanced stop lines, for example.
On The Guardian’s website, CallMeWhatever posted: “Lots of police on CS7 between Colliers Wood and Clapham Common this morning. I'm not sure if they were all there for bike watching though, or if something else was going on in the area. Some of them seemed to be using the cycle lane as parking spaces for their motorbikes, hence forcing all the cyclists out into the middle of the road.”
The Evening Standard spoke to 57-year-old Ben Watson who was stopped while taking his children to school by cargo bike this morning.
“This policeman called me over and said ‘is that bike legal?’ I thought ‘well you’re the policeman surely you should be telling me whether its legal or not’”, said Mr Watson.
“I think it seems a bit unfair as this operation is making out cyclists are the problem when it is actually cars that are the problem.
“I know where I’m going. I’ve been taking the kids to school on this route for four years, I know what I’m doing.”
On the Guardian, betweenarock12 said: “As I saw this morning, handing out fines to cyclists for stopping over the line or jumping lights versus them handing out polite leaflets to car and lorry drivers stopping over the line and stopping in the advance cyclist areas hardly sends the right message for the need for everyone to take responsibility for road safety.
That police seem to be targeting cyclists rather than even-handedly enforcing the law was a common complaint. On the Guardian’s site, andythatcham said: “Interesting chat with a police officer on my ride in this morning. 20 of them in Brixton watching cyclists on road junctions. As the PC said to me 'we're watching you lot'. Attitude and resourcing suggests Met (and Boris) blame cyclists for recent deaths.”
But it hasn’t been entirely a crackdown on cyclists. There have been many reports that just the presence of officers at junctions has prevents drivers from encroaching on bike boxes and jumping red lights, and Guardian commenter ID8688170 found officers helpful when he reported a white van that had crossed two lanes without signalling and almost hit another rider.
He said: “There was a police motorbike about 100 metres further down the road so I stopped and pointed out the van. The policeman was great about it and promptly chased after him and pulled him over to have a word. Sadly he hadn't seen it so couldn't do a lot but his attitude was great and he genuinely did his best and seemed thankful that I'd pointed it out to him.
“Hope fellow cyclists appreciate that most of the police are trying their best to help improve safety, they aren't out to get us. If you're polite I think they will take comments on board.”
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.
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39 comments
Police can be great, many are fit and cycle themselves after all. Problem is at a political level. Cycling will be the greatest missed opportunity and only a few in government seem truly clued up.
The rest are content to contribute to increasing congestion, wasting millions on various road widening schemes, ignoring air pollution and bringing about the possible collapse of the NHS with an obesity epidemic that will cripple society and healthcare provision at an unprecedented level.
They do all support cycling of course, just as long as it doesn't mean any changes need to be made.
Bromley this evening had police (though at a glance I thought he was a PCSO) who didn't need to do anything, but I did have a nice empty ASL to myself
I think this 'not understanding it' thing is nonsense. It's a big space with a picture of a bike in it.
Good work on your explanations oozaveared!
As you say, it's amazing how people just come out with this kind of stuff without thinking about it.
I had a driver going on about two-abreast the other day (fortunately in a non-driving, non-confrontational situation) so I explained the idea behind it; a group of 10 cyclists riding 2 x 5 makes a shorter overtake than one long line of 1 x 10.
As in your case, could see the light going on and the understanding that they weren't doing it to be bloody minded but to be safe. Equally fortunately, he wasn't one of these anti-cyclist, ranty people, he was just making what he considered to be a point so he was open to listening to the other view and he understood it.
Sadly, changing the behaviour and thought pattern of road users one by one isn't really a viable option!
OK - highlights this morning ...
1) driver of an expensive black BMW was being given a talking-to by the cops at Hyde Park Corner
2) a taxi drove blatantly through a red light on the one-way section around Buckingham Palace - everyone else stopped, even though there were actually no pedestrians crossing (fortunately). No police present, so the taxi driver got away with it.
2) a somewhat impatient Volvo estate drove across a zebra crossing whilst a pedestrian was crossing. Another cyclist and me stopped, as you would expect !
Here's hoping for a quiet ride back to Paddington later.
Hmm, didn't see any cops on my ride home last night. I did nearly get knocked off my bike though, by a prat on a roadbike who decided he wanted to change lanes without bothering to look first.
I think he was surpised that an older rider on old, heavy, knobbly-tyred mountain bike was overtaking him on his carbon roadbike. He did (meekly) apologise so I resisted the urge to suggest he'd be safer in his Volvo where he won't have to worry about being injured himself when he blunders into a cyclist.
Watched the report on breakfast beeb this morning, again a media push toward cyclists at fault. I fail to see why if police are going to flood the streets, none of them take to the bike, anyone who cycles sees more bad driving, bad cycling, car driver phone usage than anyone else.
Absolutely. If Boris wanted to really improve cycling he'd get the Police out on their bikes filming the behaviour of fellow road users. Everything that happened in cars, lorries etc. could be tackled from the film footage if not too serious and the rest dealt with on the spot. Imagine the howls of protest if hundreds of drivers got summonsed for dangerous driving, using phones/tablets etc. over the course of a week - oh hang on a minute, we could already do that with the footage gathered for free by regular every day cyclists...
I wonder if they got a few more police doing their patrol on bicycles if things would change a little quicker.
Everyday I ride through a short 300 metre 20mph zone at about 18 to 20mph, cars, vans and even buses always try to squeeze by never wanting to wait even 10 or 15 seconds whilst I go through. I have even seen cars passing on the wrong side of traffic Islands rather than wait.
Luckily in Plymouth the vast majority will be patient. The more cyclist on the roads the better as we'll naturally slow the traffic down & folks will eventually learn to live with us.
I _so_ want to see a cop fine a fellow cop for driving into an ASL at red. I see police vehicles do it so often that surely such a cop-books-cop incident must happen, if they are seriously cracking down on it?
Maybe a more constructive thought, wouldn't a few public information adverts help with the misguided indignation?
People are allowed to walk across the road.
Riding two abreast is ok.
Riding in the middle of the road is ok.
Riding on pavements is bad.
Parking on pavements is bad.
Talking on phones is bad.
Running lights is bad.
How to use ASL's
Etc etc
TV time is cheap as chips at the mo.
Maybe a Kickstarter/crowd funded advert?
There must be ad agency out there with the kit, the talent and the contacts to make some serious commercials that can be broadcast independently on behalf of the cyclists of the UK?
I'd definitely chip in the pot
I think that's a great idea and know a few people who may be willing to help.
Seconded, A proper attempt to highlight issues related to real world cycling on the road . We ride, we're allowed to and we are gong to continue to do so.
We should do this and get a crowd funded motion going....
Sorry about the huge quote lump above, but a) I think this is a great idea, although b) it has to be better than the "Niceway Code", which was utter sh*t. Fey flappy "just be nice to each other" campaigns don't work. Which ads do people remember? The hard-hitting ones.
A series of ads that show people acting like dicks (both drivers and cyclists) and then the unpleasant consequences for them, their families or the people they hit - that's what will be memorable and is more likely to alter people's behaviour than yet another "we all have to share" whimper.
Couldn't agree more with all of this. A campaign which genuinely addresses bad behaviour of all parties rather than being weak or divisive would be awesome, I'd happily invest, if not be involved in producing them! And I think many of the thousands of cyclists out there would happily chip in £5 or £10. It would need to go viral/get the backing of some of the larger organisations/cycling leaders to reach enough people but that achievable and it would be enough! Here's ITV's rates:
http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/assets/itv_media_new_design/content/downloadab...
Like this one from Thor Hushovd? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_W4xE7_7TI
Seconded, A proper attempt to highlight issues related to real world cycling on the road . We ride, we're allowed to and we are gong to continue to do so.
We should do this and get a crowd funded motion going....
Excellent post. The ignorance by some non-cycling motorists is actually staggering. I hear comments all the time in the office and I do take the time to correct people (no Dale Carnegie for me then) More galling is that they quite often assume that they know the Highway code and the law and that a cyclist doesn't. I am a member of the IAM so I like to disabuse them of some of the crazy ideas they have about cyclists and about their own road use.
Latest one was only this morning with a moan that a cyclist deliberately moved out into the road when it was getting narrow stopping his car from overtaking and then moved back over to the left as the road widened out. This was seen as provocative and dangerous.
I took the time to tell him that it was not only not meant to be provocative it was advanced roadcraft that ensured the cyclists safety by making it clear that squeezing past in to narrow a space was not an option. The explanation was like a light going on for this chap and yes he did get it. I followed with the question as to what he thought the cyclist should have done before I explained what was happening and he admitted he though the cyclist should have got right over to let cars squeeze past and he agreed that would have been stupid as there was no room.
It's a tiny bit of driver education because I think some of them haven't really thought through why some cyclists do what they do and assume it's contrary to the highway code when what they are doing is exactly right and safe.
Funniest one was me cycling on the outside overtaking a line of stationary traffic being careful and slow about it when a chap decides to get out of his into the road to stop me. So I stopped while he told me that what I was doing was illegal. The most amusing thing was that he was a special constable. I quietly told him that it was neither illegal nor dangerous. But there are all sorts of people out there driving cars (and some riding bikes) that have either never read the Highway code or have their own private version of it.
I hope they were out at dusk today and picked up the cars with headlights out.
'jaywalking' is illegal in many US states but not here in the UK
pedestrians, like cyclists and equestrians (horse riders) have a legal 'right of way' to use the public highway
motorists do not have any legal right of way (they confuse this with their 'right of way' at junctions when encountering other motor vehicles)
motorists are granted an exemption to drive on the public highway through the licensing of the driver, and their vehicle. This exemption can be withdrawn at any time by the authorities.
a number of motorists in the UK have an attitude that it is "their right to drive" when in fact the law says otherwise
on a day to day basis (what you see on the street) you will see this confusion when a pedestrian is legitimately crossing the street and a motorist tries to bully / intimidate them by driving at them at speed, and beeping their horn.
What this motorist does not realize is that that pedestrian actually has a legal entitlement to cross that road, and the motorist should give way if the pedestrian is already crossing before the motorist arrives at that section of road.
Sadly, because of the prominence given to motor vehicles in the UK, snobbery about ownership of vehicles versus cycling and pedestrians, and a lack of traffic policing, these drivers believe that other road users should get out of their way!
of course, this does not excuse a pedestrian stepping into the street without due care and attention (which we might call jaywalking), which is a situation many cyclists have experienced:-
-a pedestrian distracted by their phone, music, newspaper, lunch, etc. steps off the pavement without looking and nearly goes into the cyclist, as the lack of engine noise (associated with motor vehicles) tells them the road is clear
of course, this 'jaywalking' is also a reason that a large number of pedestrians end up killed or seriously injured by motorists in the UK every year, from not paying attention to oncoming motor vehicle traffic
Got knocked off again today, it's the second time in a few months.
Last time the guy got out of his car and hit me for being a cyclist, this time it was an old boy who was really apologetic. Both times there were witnesses to confirm there was nothing I could do and it was the drivers fault.
I'm not a newbie to cycling and have thousands of road miles experience both at pace and commuting.
TBH though the outcome as I sit here now is that a nice big 4x4 to drive around in has never looked so appealing and the chance of me encouraging the family to get about by bike are close to zero.
I personally get annoyed when people jump red lights as they are also branded as cyclists by the general public, today I saw a lot of people getting nabbed for that.
But also saw 2 officers standing at each side of the road at Waterloo and both completely ignored a pair of jaywalkers running in front of me.
So like the others a mixed bag but better than nothing I guess.
Let's see what happens when the dust settles down.
'Jaywalking' is simply called crossing the road in this country and isn't illegal. Dangerous at times? Sure, but not illegal. I welcome the crackdown. Better if it is truly even handed. If it isn't? Well people should not be breaking the law, be they cyclist or motorist. Just don't let a policeman or woman ask me where my helmet is because I'll be pointing to my pants.
Crossing the road isn't illegal in this country.
EDIT Pipped by SM!
Judging by my own experience of the police as a cyclist when I was knocked off by a driver not looking, it was one of contempt and I seemed to be the criminal and was wasting their time.
did not see any evidence of Police in Camden today
just saw the usual from motorists using smart phones in their cars, vehicles of all sorts including motorbikes, cars, taxi and HGV / bus encroaching into the ASL, and 2 instances of motorists trying to drive through pedestrians crossing on a green pedestrian crossing light (which means a red traffic stop light)
funny thing we don't hear about statistics on numbers of cyclists being injured in RTC, just the deaths.
When I was in hospital on Friday having my plaster cast removed (after being involved in a hit and run involving a white van from the previous week) I overheard the medical staff talking to the people on the left and right of my bay, and both told the consultants they had been knocked off their bikes by cars.
the guy on the right sounded in a bad way, the consultant said his bone was fragmented into little pieces and there was nothing they could do to screw/glue it back together. said something about him requiring surgery once it healed and expecting long term problems, yikes!
the consultant asked how my injury had happened, I told her about my RTC and she said they'd seen a huge increase in cyclists coming into A&E or fracture clinic for hit and runs or just from falling off their bikes due to "other conditions"
'Anecdotal evidence'...but telling
On my ride home this evening, just as you come into Brixton near the police station. 2 cars in the ASL and 3 bikes with no lights. Standing on the pavement 3 fat plod, seeing everything and doing nothing. What a waste of time and money.
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