Police to “protect” cyclists with speed limit checks to tackle “dangerous and careless” riding

Last week, Derbyshire Constabulary announced a new campaign that involved more patrolling on the roads to make them safer, saying they will focus on protecting cyclists and motorbike riders by keeping them within speed limits and reducing dangerous behaviour, while also dealing with instances of bad driving, including close passes.

The campaign, called “Peak District patrols to protect bikers and cyclists”, was announced on 14 April, the police saying that with brighter weather on its way, more cyclists are likely to hit the roads. They also claimed that “more than a quarter of people who have lost their lives on Derbyshire’s roads in the last three years, where [sic.] motorbike riders or cyclists”, despite “only making up three per cent of all road users in the UK”.

To change this, the Derbyshire Constabulary wrote that it is going to spend “more time on our most rural roads, to ensure riders are keeping to speed limits and riding with care”.

Adam Titterton, a sergeant in the roads policing unit added that they’ll be spending more time on the roads where they’ve seen most incidents involving bikes and motorbikes, including areas like Snake Pass and peak district routes, where they “more frequently see people speeding and riding both dangerously and carelessly”.

He said: “We’ll also be out talking to people and running stop checks to ensure our communities are using roads responsibly. And we will be recommending our BikeSafe course, which is a fantastic chance for motorbike riders to enhance their skills with instruction from our advanced police motorbike riders.”

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road.cc reached out to Derbyshire Constabulary for a clarification of the statement, and the force told us that this operation “aims to reduce the number of collisions involving motorcycles and bicycles”.

They said: “As part of that operation, our officers will be patrolling in high visibility and plain vehicles on the key routes across the Peak District National Park looking for signs of bad driving including close passes.

“Any motorist seen driving in an unsafe way will be dealt with by officers.

“Also, as part of Derbyshire Capture, we are continuing to encourage cyclists to submit evidence they gather of poor driving which we will use to either educate or prosecute drivers as a result.”

And finally, they added that officers will be carrying out more speed checks and will be “stopping and speaking to those road users whose behaviour may cause a danger to themselves or others”.

While the initiative seems intended to protect cyclists, the wording does suggest they are planning to police them more as well.

Recently, Derbyshire Police featured in our Near Miss of the Day series when a taxi driver was given a warning letter after overtaking a long queue of traffic at speed in the wrong lane – narrowly avoiding an oncoming cyclist and her child in the process – because they believed that a conviction was “not realistic” and that prosecuting the motorist would not be “proportional”.

> Near Miss of the Day 849: Warning letter for taxi driver who close passed oncoming cyclist while overtaking queue of traffic in wrong lane

The incident took place on a key active travel route, with two schools on streets adjacent to the section of the road.

The cyclist Kate, had already submitted a previous instance of a close pass from an HGV driver to Derbyshire Police before, and it resulted in no action. And when she submitted the taxi driver’s close pass in January, she told us that she just received a “generic response” within a day to confirm that the taxi driver would receive a warning letter.

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“There was no reasoning given behind the decision not to prosecute and their letter says I can’t question this decision,” she said.

“So, I’m not terribly impressed with Derbyshire Constabulary,” Kate continued. “Derbyshire roads are really not great for safety. The unwillingness of Derbyshire Constabulary to enforce bad driving has to be a big part of this problem.”