When one Birmingham cyclist’s Saturday bike ride with his eight-year-old granddaughter was interrupted by the sound of police sirens they carefully continued on their way for a few seconds, after all it seemed implausible the noise could be for the pair “not doing anything wrong”, using a short stretch of cycle lane before returning to their preferred off-road routes for the remainder of the 12.5-mile ride.
“Can you pull over so we can have a word?” the voice behind the sirens asked, the police car, blue lights flashing, pulling alongside before coming to a stop at the side of the road.
What followed was, in one officer’s words, just “a conversation” about road safety, namely the fact that neither Joe nor his eight-year-old granddaughter were wearing a helmet, an incident which has put her off cycling.
These officers may have had the best of intentions, when they pulled me and my GD over for cycling in the bike lane, without helmets, but it may not work out that way.
Following our exchange, the first thing my GD said was, “I’m not going on my bike again now.” pic.twitter.com/T9GAwkPpjY
— Your Average Joe (@FrankleyMan) October 21, 2023
“On getting out of the vehicle the driver made a comment about us riding in the road without helmets,” Joe recalled, referring to his camera footage which he did not wish to be shared but captured the full incident. “I asked, ‘Is that illegal?’… ‘No’ was the answer, so I followed up by asking, ‘Why are you pulling us over then?’
“In reply to this the officer said, ‘I’m not here to have a go at you, or tell you you’ve broken the law, I’m not doing that… neither of you have done anything wrong, I’m just saying, just be sensible, that’s it. No trouble, I’m not telling you you’ve broken the law, I’m just having a conversation with you’.
“I then followed this up by saying, ‘There’s no need. You’ve stopped us on a hill… I can’t understand why you’ve stopped us, if we’re doing nothing wrong.’ The reply was, ‘Because it’s dangerous’.”
Having only planned a slow, away from the roads ride, we didn’t bother with helmets, which we do own), or turning on the Cycliq (until this point).
12.5 miles, 150yds in a cycle lane, and these officers think they care more about my GD than I do!
How risk adverse can one be… pic.twitter.com/iUz680yk9O
— Your Average Joe (@FrankleyMan) October 21, 2023
Wearing a helmet while cycling is not a legal requirement in the United Kingdom, as it is in some other countries such as Australia, but is recommended by the Highway Code.
Last December, the Department for Transport insisted that the government has “no intention” of making wearing one a legal requirement, with “the safety benefits of mandating cycle helmets for cyclists likely to be outweighed by the fact that this would put some people off cycling, thereby reducing the wider health and environmental benefits.”
> Government shuts down mandatory cycling helmets question from Conservative MP
Continuing his account of Saturday’s incident, Joe told us one of the officers talked “about the possibility of us being involved in a collision further on where he would have to attend and deal with the consequences of my granddaughter being hit”.
“Hearing this, I did become slightly irate, but not shouty, as I didn’t think it was a reasonable thing to say in front of an eight-year-old, implying I hadn’t considered her safety myself,” Joe continued.
“To make things worse, the officer then went on to say how he was thinking about looking ‘after her’ pointing to my granddaughter. I then asked, as I had a few times, ‘Do you not think, I’m looking after her?’.
The officer replied: “Of course you are, I could see you were riding further in the road than she was, which is brilliant” before shortly after suggesting that “if a car careers in to you, not wearing a helmet, you’re going to know about it”.
As Joe again pointed out that nothing they had done was against the law, the officer said: “Just take my advice, that she should wear a helmet.”
> Why is Dan Walker’s claim that a bike helmet saved his life so controversial?
“Throughout this whole exchange I was continually calling my granddaughter over so we could carry on our journey, but she seemed so scared, she didn’t move from the spot she was on,” Joe said.
“Also, neither of these officers tried to ease her obvious discomfort by talking to her directly, until they were about to get back into their vehicle. The final comments from the driver were, ‘Just because it’s not against the law, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out something that might save somebody’s life’, nodding his head towards me, he then added, ‘Think about it… if it was against the law I’d be arresting you and detaining you’.
“My final comment was to ask, ‘Do you stop every cyclist you see without a helmet?’. To which he replied: ‘I do, when I see a little five, six, or seven-year-old girl’.”
When contacted for comment on the incident, West Midlands Police defended the officers’ approach and stated that “road safety is a priority for us and we will always look to educate road users on how they can keep safe.”
The force has previously come under criticism for its response to camera footage of alleged dangerous driving, West Midlands Police this year admitting that it needed to review how reports were managed after reporting by this website, supported by an FOI request by Chris Smith, found that of 286 reports of careless, inconsiderate, or dangerous driving around cyclists considered by West Midlands Police in 2022, only one resulted in a prosecution.
Saturday’s incident also comes at the end of a summer when the force said it had undertaken a “relentless enforcement of the rules of the road” after multiple cyclists and pedestrians were killed in a series of hit-and-runs and collisions in Birmingham.
A father of a two-year-old boy was killed in a hit-and-run while cycling on 16 May, weeks before a 12-year-old riding a bike was also killed, and a driver arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and being unfit to drive through drugs. On 29 May, a cyclist was killed in a further hit-and-run before a four-year-old boy was killed after being hit by a driver in Erdington a day later.
The deaths prompted the West Midlands’ Walking and Cycling Commissioner Adam Tranter to call for urgent action to “turn the tide on aggressive driving in Birmingham”.
Just yesterday we reported a step West Midlands Police had taken in the force’s attempt to address aforementioned issues with the camera footage submitting process, officers celebrating “action taken against hundreds of careless and dangerous drivers” and calling for more public submissions.
The force increased resources in its Traffic Investigations Unit responsible for processing third-party footage and thanked the public for the “great response to the bolstering of the team” and said “road users who send us footage say they’re pleased with the results and the feedback given”.
> Conservative MP cites “safety” and attempts to reignite cyclist helmet debate
“We’ve got a vital role to play in keeping the roads safe, but we can’t be everywhere all the time,” Tanya Johnson said. “That’s why it’s great that we’re getting so many clips in. In more than 140 cases last month, we didn’t need to issue points, fines or court action, but offered education and advice to drivers.
“That will make those motorists think twice about the standard of their driving, and that could well save lives.”
89 thoughts on “Cyclist and granddaughter, 8, stopped for helmet “safety” advice by police who “sounded their sirens” and pulled pair over “because it’s dangerous””
I saw this on Twitter. I
I saw this on Twitter. I think it’s a terrible approach by the police. They’d be better focussing on bad driving.
OldRidgeback wrote:
Well, if it saves one driver from having to pay attention…
There’s some sort of
There’s some sort of manifesto promise / slogan in here somewhere….
“The Filth.
Tough on cyclist safety. Tough on the causes of cyclist KSIs – not so much.”
And the police wonder why the
And the police wonder why the public have so little faith in them.
I notice that the police
I notice that the police officers are also not wearing helmets.
Officer, I notice you’re
Officer, I notice you’re wearing HiViz – is that supposed to make you look important?
No, of course not. It’s for safety, due to the danger from traffic.
Oh, so you’re at risk of being hit by motorists just like us cyclists are? Why don’t you wear a helmet then?
Christ. I’m very strongly pro
Christ. I’m very strongly pro-helmet, and even I think this is terrible policing. Overly-officious and a prolonged insult to a law-abiding (and not “otherwise law-abiding”) rider in front of a small child he was taking responsibility for.
If a car careers into you, you’re going to know or not know about it regardless of a helmet. The police should be spending more time offering words of advice to drivers whose driving makes it likely that their cars will career into cycling children. There’s no shortage of them in the West Midlands.
I really hope Joe can
I really hope Joe can encourage his granddaughter back onto her bike. A 12.5 mile cycle is a fantastic effort at 8 years old!
Uniformed bully. No wonder
Uniformed bully. No wonder people do not trust them.
This is dreadful. I hope it
This is dreadful. I hope it doesn’t end here.
Doubtless this is the
Are they simple? Helmets do not protect against vehicle impact!
It seems like WMP like all
It seems like WMP like all other forces in the UK have given up policing motorists* (if they ever did) because it is too difficult/can’t be bothered/too many loopholes in the law./insert excuse here etc. and now solely focus on warning victims about the possible impact of criminal behaviour.
This is the same as putting up those ridiculous signs on residential streets saying “Thieves operate in his area”, which really should say “Police don’t operate around these parts”. Or saying always lock your car etc. Where I live people think this advice is rubbish because if they lock their cars the thieves break the windows so do more damage, and so they leave their cars unlocked which perplexes the braindead coppers who think that handing out leaflets to potential victims counts as policing when they should actually be handing out prosecutions to perpetrators.
The job of police should be to police the many actual perpetrators and not the potential victims.
*this word is superfluous
“if a car careers in to you,
“if a car careers in to you, not wearing a helmet, you’re going to know about it”.
Where can I get one of these magic helmets from?
Those police officers need some very basic training if that think that being hit by 2T at 50 kph will be mitigated by a helmet
What do they tell peds walking on a footway ?
Hirsute wrote:
So…..if the car was wearing a helmet, they’d be OK. Excellent.
Now, I do wear a helmet whilst riding, yet last time I was taken out by a car I ended up bouncing off the bonnet (a witness said I was about 8ft in the air) before hitting the deck & sliding across the road and coming to a rest amidst a pile of broken bones and bike parts. Head never touched the ground.
Obviously I sued the helmet manufacturer. Abject failure to do its job d’ye see.
Just when West Midlands
Just when West Midlands Police were once again starting to look like a shining example of how to deal with cyclists safety for other forces to copy after a few years of backsliding these two idiots come along and spoil it.
The cyclist killed on 29 May this year was called Laurentiu. Not only did his murder devastate his family in Romania, his best friend here was so depressed he started self medicating and lost his job.
As long as we scare 8 year olds into wearing a helmet or giving up cycling all together everything will be alright though.
I got mgif’d at Bell Bridge
I got mgif’d at Bell Bridge Walsall by a WMP car the other day, they then stopped in the bike box…. cartard cops… these two are also morons. helmets are not for cars hitting cyclists as well they should know. Maybe stop some speeding no numberplate/brains drivers that make Midlands life bloody miserable.
The no-numberplate thing is
The no-numberplate thing is shocking. I used to pass the time by keeping a rough tally of the obscured (heavily darkened) plates, seeing two or three every journey to work. Now I’ve given up, they’re everywhere, I can’t count that big! Instead I count the sans-plates – two or three most journeys. How soon before they too are commonplace? How can the police not notice?
I don’t know what their
I don’t know what their policy states, but I would be extremely surprised if it didn’t say something like “Only use siren and flashing lights in an emergency or to pull over a law-breaking driver.” so those police have probably broken their own policy. It could well be illegal to use them to pull over someone not breaking the law, but even if it isn’t, it is absolute overkill for someone behaving completely legally.
Never mind the crap from their HQ, bung in a complaint now. At the very least it’s an abuse of power and their bosses should be issuing a grovelling apology, not excusing such idiotic behaviour.
EDIT Rules about use of lights and sirens are notable by their absence, but I did find this in parliamentary written answers:
“Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Conservative
Life peer
Lords
Answered on
16 July 2021
The conditions under which sirens may be used are governed by Regulation 99 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 (C & U). Emergency service vehicles are permitted to use a siren to indicate to other road users the urgency of the purposes for which the vehicle is being used, or to warn other road users of the presence of the vehicle on the road.
Subject to the regulations and any form of guidance, drivers are expected to use their professional judgement to decide when and where the use of sirens is appropriate.
The use of sirens and other attributes fitted to road vehicles used by the emergency services is a matter for the chief officers of those services in conjunction with the chief officer of police for that area. There are no current plans to intervene.”
Indeed, are the police
Indeed, are the police empowered to pull people over simply to impart their advice and display their bias? I thought they needed some relevant cause in order to stop a person in the street, no?
Edit – a little research seems to say that plod can pull over [i]drivers[/i] on a whim. But for others they need “reasonable suspicion”. They’ve gone out of their way here to make it clear they had no reasonable suspicion whatsoever, and also that they do this as a matter of course to cyclists. Seems they are routinely operating outside their remit.
Leaving aside whether it was
Leaving aside whether it was appropriate for the police to stop the cyclists, they were legally entitled to; Section 163 of the Road Traffic Act empowers a uniformed officer to stop anyone driving a motor vehicle or riding a bicycle on the road with no reasonable suspicion required.
Sounds like someone was
Sounds like someone in that cop car was feeling badly in need of a nice little power trip, but didn’t fancy having to do the paperwork that hauling in a local bogan would entail, so when they spotted an old man and a young girl cycling without helmets, they figured that’d do.
Charitably – they may have an
Charitably – they may have an extremely salient personal connection to the issue (bit like ShutTheFrontDawes formerly of this parish) and be unable to let the advice in rule 59 go without reinforcement.
ubercurmudgeon wrote:
Assumption! A chap could easily have an eight-year-old granddaughter and be under fifty, considerably under in some circumstances, which is very definitely (I say as one over fifty) not “an old man”.
‘Have I broken the law?’
‘Have I broken the law?’
‘No.’
Cool, see ya then.
Just gotta start walking away from these dickheads, just like we would teach our kids to walk away from the school bully. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Dogless wrote:
Also “am I free to go?” is a good one.
hawkinspeter wrote:
“I’m sure you’re very busy catching criminals, officer, so I won’t take up any more of your valuable time; good day to you sir.”
“Am I being detained?”
“Am I being detained?”
Patrick9-32 wrote:
The issue with that question is that they could truthfully answer “yes” to that as they are “detaining” you in the sense of delaying you going about your business, but not necessarily “detained” as in keeping you in custody. The word “detained” is ambiguous.
If they answer “yes” to “am I free to go”, then they have no comeback when you walk/cycle off into the distance. If they answer “no”, then you can start questioning their grounds for not letting you go.
However, I suspect that most police wouldn’t try to twist people’s words to such an extent, though there’s been cases in the U.S. that are spectacularly bad:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told-police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/
The only thing criminal there
The only thing criminal there is the narrow painted cycle lane. Especially as that street’s wide enough for some proper segregated infrastructure.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Anu7hpJAMkE4EmnDA
It must have passed me by (as
It must have passed me by (as I only see them on videos, they’re an endangered species in the wild here in Dorset), but the police all seem to look like paramilitaries now, they save the bobby outfits for funerals & coronations, etc.
You’d never want to ask those clowns for directions or the time. Or indeed advice on road safety.
I occasionally see the odd
I occasionally see the odd BTP officer at the station wearing a traditional helmet, which is nice. Still paramilitary for the rest mind…
Is it forms follows function
Is it forms follows function or the other way round…?
UK has nothing on the US, mind …
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarization_of_police
I practically never ride
I practically never ride without helmet, but putting police sirens for an 8year old girl could be a traumatic experience. Very wrong approach.
oh the humanity.. cry me a
oh the humanity.. cry me a river.
At the risk of being called a
At the risk of being called a troll again I’m going to stick up for the police on this one. I think we can all agree that it is a good idea for young children to wear a helmet on a bike as they are more likely to fall off when learning to cycle and that is exactly the scenario a helmet is desgned for. These policemen are young and possibly inexperienced and I am sure had good intentions, they could not know that this youngster is obviously a very capable cyclist and it is likely they were trying to be helpful.
If this had been me I would not have been confrontational. We need the police on our side. I was young once and didn’t get everything right, I needed help to become a better human being, probably more help than most if I’m honest.
The police don’t always get things right but confronting people generally leads to entrenched positions as most people find it hard to back down. Engaging them in conversation is a much more productive exercise. Maybe Joe could have thanked them for their concern but have pointed out out that the child was a capable cyclist and that helmets are of little use in a collision with a car. He could also have explained that the lights and siren could be frightening to an 8 year old.
Finally, chapeau to the granddaughter, I hope that she does continue with her cycling and well done to Joe for encouraging her.
Bungle_52 wrote:
This incident demonstrates how focussing on cycling helmets is detrimental, though. The child was enjoying cycling and gaining the health benefits as well as spending quality time with her grand-father and due to the misguided actions of the police, the child is now scared to cycle and presumably she’ll now consider cycling to be a dangerous activity.
I don’t quite understand why you think that Joe was being confrontational, but not the police. They are the ones who performed a quite aggressive act of using sirens and lights which obviously frightened the girl and it was totally unnecessary. Joe was absolutely right to not put up with their bullshit. The police need to focus on road danger – that’s dangerous drivers, not an 8-year old girl on her bike.
hawkinspeter wrote:
— hawkinspeterAbsolutely spot on Peter! And a big thumbs-up to Joe for sticking up for himself.
I’m glad this aggressive stunt by the 2 officers was caught on camera. The subsequent refusal by WMP to accept they were wrong is quite concerning.
I live in Australia and on
I live in Australia and on weekends, see numerous children riding on bike paths with their families, all wearing bike helmets; strangely, they seem to be enjoying themselves regardless of the horrific imposition placed upon them by the government to wear helmets.
grOg wrote:
I suppose you don’t see the poorer families that don’t bother cycling as they know they’ll be targetted by the police for not wearing a helmet. Probably notable that they don’t cycle on the roads due to the police enforcing cycle helmets rather than stopping the dangerous drivers too.
I imagine that if the same incident happened in Australia and the kid was aboriginal or from a poor neighbourhood, they’d have been strip-searched and thrown into jail unless they could pay several hundred dollars in a fine. It’s laughable that you think that Australia demonstrates that mandatory cycle helmets is a good idea.
https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2019/over-the-top-policing-of-bike-helmet-laws-targets-vulnerable-riders.php
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51496206
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jan/19/the-wa-cops-rounding-up-indigenous-kids-a-toxic-and-racist-environment
I suppose the weekends are when the well-to-do white families can have a nice pootle along a cycle path and don’t have to deal with the toxic road environments that Australians have created and won’t have to worry about the police using cycle helmets as a pretext for child abuse.
It was the police that were
It was the police that were being confrontational and the whole concept is just back to front. If the police think she is in danger, then they should be removing the danger by pulling over speeding drivers, not wasting time on cyclists doing nothing wrong.
Again why are people obsessed with PPE ?
Hirsute wrote:
Quite a few years ago, the HSE declared that cycle helmets are not PPE, and I don’t think they’ve revised that opinion since.
eburtthebike wrote:
So what are they classified as? Decoration?
Bungle_52 wrote:
In my view it’s the officers who are being confrontational here by using blues and twos to pull over a grandparent and grandchild who are completely within the law and going about their lawful occasions. If the police want to promote a pro-helmet message and feel that is a good use of their time, standing outside supermarkets handing out leaflets and giving advice is one thing, actually pulling people over when they haven’t committed any offence is confrontational. You’re correct in that confrontation here led to entrenched positions with people not wanting to back down, but it’s the police who have continued to be confrontational and refused to back down, making unwarranted comments implying that the grandfather doesn’t care about his grandchild and so forth. As soon it was clear that the adult was not interested in receiving their advice the police should have left it, they have neither the mandate nor the authority to continue badgering people who are completely within the law once they have been told to leave them alone.
You’ve missed in Joe’s tweet
You’ve missed in Joe’s tweet that he says the experience has meant his granddaughter no longer wants to ride her bike.
I can’t stick up for the
I can’t stick up for the officers.
But a huge chunk of the reasoning isn’t that they stopped the riders to give advice.
It is what the photo shows. Last I checked, police were generally instructed that if possible you stop BEHIND any vehicle being pulled over; This is a safety factor – it puts the police vehicle, with flashing lights drawing attention etc between the source of traffic and the stopped vehicle, because it is more likely to be seen (and so not crashed into) and also protects the incident (have to go through the police car to hit anything else. This is particularly relevent for a cyclist who is far more likely to be killed in a collision. So why on earth is there a stopped police car in view of a front camera. Especially given I would argue that with 2 cyclists, one a child, they should be stopping off the road, pretty much exactly where the police car is now parked with open doors (so stopped)… Yes, the layby goes back beyond this, but given the leave covered, rough surface, giving the cyclists as much room as possible to elect to safely stop out of the flow. (n.b. given leaves + potential surface issues they don’t have to stop there)
Traffic delays be damned; If the police have enough reason to stop someone then they should have enough reason to block the road while they do…
Of course most videos I see of police stopping cyclists seem to involve hard stops (use police vehicle to force the rider to emergency stop or crash) without ever requesting the cyclist pull over safely…
How many wear helmets in
How many wear helmets in Holland? – ask Chris Boardman about helmet usage…
Pretty equivalent to a driver
Pretty equivalent to a driver being stopped and given advice on how more reflective paint would be safer.
Car Delenda Est wrote:
Except for the fact that a driver poses far more danger to other road users than an 8-year old and her grand-dad does, cycling along
Meanwhile (well, the day
Meanwhile in Brighton I saw a family of four split between two Yamaha Nikkens (or something with the same wheel setup) with the parents and two toddlers wearing bicycle helmets..
Maybe these officers should
Maybe these officers should be taught about the hierarchy of controls to improve safety and where their roles lie within it? Its not their job to police the use of PPE (the least effective control) its their job to eliminate the hazard by removing bad drivers from the road (the most effective control). Wasting time on chasing non mandatory PPE violations is taking time away from stopping dangerous road users.
As a grandparent the chap
As a grandparent the chap should have thought of his granddaughters safety and had her in a helmet anyway , shouldnt be any need for the police to have to have a normal conversation with him about helmets , the grandfather is the problem here not the police .
Another troll joins for half
Another troll joins for half term.
You are the troll here..
You are the troll here..
I’m not surprised you are
I’m not surprised you are unable to recognise trolls.
Perhaps you could explain how the comment made related in anyway to all the previous posts ?
Surely “The cars are the
Surely “The cars are the problem here”?
Kids can fall over and bang their heads (and do) while doing all sorts of activities. They’re probably at a slightly higher risk of doing so when cycling (and due to having their lower limbs around the bike they may be slightly less able to adjust their position etc.). So helmets seem reasonable. However I’m not aware the risk is significantly more than many other activities which don’t commonly see this stresss on helmets e.g. ice skating – or likely just running around where there are hard surfaces (even playgrounds have play equipment in them.)
OTOH we all quickly recognise the dangers of motor vehicles – especially around children…
But behing hit by a vehicle is precisely what a helmet will offer marginal or no protection against*.
* May mitigate head injuries in some collisions, essentially where the cyclist is just falling off (what the legal specification is – I know that some manufacturers say “but we exceed that!”). At most likely relative collision speeds it will offer almost no protection. And of course it only protects (part of) your head…
Just grabbing some popcorn
Just grabbing some popcorn for the comments.
A family member was hit by a
A family member was hit by a careless driver last year and suffered brain damage. The solicitor tells us that the onus will be on him to get expert testimony that wearing a helmet wouldn’t have made a difference for to the speed of the collision, otherwise the judge will likely rule 25% contributory negligence for not wearing one and reduce the payout from the insurers accordingly. I don’t think it would be much of a leap from there to ruling contributory negligence for allowing a child to ride without a helmet so legal requirement or not, I think it’s pretty good advice the police have given here.
CiroT wrote:
That doesn’t make any sense to me. Surely the duty of proof is on the insurers to prove that wearing a helmet would have significantly affected the result. I had a little look the other day for instances of helmet wearing affecting payouts and the only cycle related one was based in Ireland where the law is somewhat different. It might be worth getting a second opinion/solicitor as lack of non-essential PPE should have no bearing on a case where someone else causes the incident.
Do you think the police should go around high crime areas and advise the people that they should wear stab-proof vests to protect against knife crime? Would a stabbing victim be held to be 25% negligent for not wearing a stab vest? Obviously this is a facetious example as stab vests are specifically designed to protect against knife attacks, whereas cycle helmets are most definitely not designed to protect against being hit by a car.
Edit: found this page which details some relevant cases in case that helps your family with the court case: https://www.weightmans.com/insights/cycle-helmets-and-contributory-negligence-revisited/
Note that they state that the duty of proof is on the defendant/insurer.
May I ask, out of curiousity,
May I ask, out of curiosity, what the collision speed was?
And this is the real reason
And this is the real reason for cycle helmet wearing – contributory negligence. Thanks to the insurance lobbyists/donors that force ill conceived policy onto a society that ensures driver bias is thorough.
There is no ‘Plan for Drivers’, nor war on motorists. The reality is carnage from drivers.
Unlikely that compensation
Unlikely that compensation will be reduced if they have competent legal representation. https://www.mondaq.com/uk/rail-road–cycling/1380446/how-smith-v-finch-has-been-run-over-by-a-boris-bike
If the Birmingham police
If the Birmingham police force are so OVER resourced that they can use their lights and sirens for this, can they share their spare capacity with the rest of the country’s beleagured police units?
Or should they concentrate on the real dangers that vulnerable road users face: namely dangerous and ACTUALLY ILLEGAL drivers?
By and large there are two
By and large there are two types of people who join the Police service; those that wish to make society a safer place and those that enjoy the power and authority of the uniform. This article isn’t about helmets, it’s about the use or abuse of power. Were it not for the use of the Police siren one could, perhaps, just about, at a pinch understand the Officer wishing to suggest the use of helmets albeit not their place and they should concentrate of drivers not cyclists etc. etc. etc. However the use of a siren must have scared the bejesus out of the girl which, I regret to say, marks this incident out as a flagrant abuse of power. WMP should give the proverbial ‘words of advice’ to the Officers and should reach out to Joe and his Granddaughter and apologise. If not they should be on the receiving end of a complaint for their Officers’ behaviour.
Using a siren to pull a
Using a siren to pull a vehicle over is standard practice, not an abuse of power.
You should read the article,
Had the eight year old been driving a car, using a siren to pull her over in such circumstances would be understandable. However if you think that using a siren to pull over an eight year old girl cycling perfectly lawfully with her grandfather is acceptable then you may be the type of person who falls into the power kick/uniform category. It takes all sorts I suppose and I wish you well in your journey towards self discovery and fulfilment.
Quote:
Special things these helmets, if a car careers in to me wearing a helmet I can expect no broken limbs or ribs as long as I am wearing a helmet. I put it to the officer that I will know about it whether or not I am wearing a helmet, and if he could focus on stopping drivers from careering around out of control that would do a LOT more for my safety.
Why are the police wearing Hi
Why are the police wearing Hi-Viz? I’m guessing it’s a nod to the dangers of being exposed to traffic whilst out of their vehicle. The same dangers the cyclists are exposed to. So why are the police not taking their own advice and wearing polystyrene helmets? Is it because they recognise that they offer negligible protection in collision with a vehicle, something well outside their design spec.
What a bunch of a**hats
What a bunch of a**hats
“Can you pull over so we can
“Can you pull over so we can have a word?”
The correct answer to this is ‘No- cheerio’, although I suppose you would have to wait through the first few words before it became obvious what it’s about. The police are not the slightest bit interested in the safety of cyclists, although they are sometimes (as in this case) interested in pretending to be caring and sharing in a ‘our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the deceased cyclist’ kind of way. I was coming south down the A6 from the Lakes for a short distance yesterday and both lanes were packed with traffic travelling at about 40mph because of a serious roadworks bottleneck a couple of miles further south- nobody was paying any attention to any namby-pamby close passing ‘advice’, which is entirely non-enforced by Lancashire police. As far as FoI etc. is able to discover, LC has never prosecuted anybody for close passing a cyclist. These are my usual 2 examples, repeated for new readers:
https://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/
https://upride.cc/incident/yn67mvj_sainsburys44tonner_closepass/
The police claimed to be taking action for the first, but were almost certainly lying- to be continued…They refused to respond to the second, and now never reply to any reports. People proudly claim on here good results from their reports, but the police are probably lying about a lot of them and actually did nothing. They view themselves as ‘too busy’ to waste time on cyclist safety, or any other safety for that matter. I have been going on and on here, and at LC, about WU59 UMH for a long time. This is the latest, but 3 1/2 years of No MOT, No Insurance and No VED, and a recent failed MOT with several Do not drive until repaired (dangerous defects) warnings has no effect on the driver, or the police who can’t be bothered (even I don’t think this is corruption- even the 80-or-less IQ police are not daft enough for that in a case like this. If only there was some way of tracing such drivers and vehicles from that mobile 07766 076612 -even if he has gone bust?
FYI; a bicycle is legally a
FYI; a bicycle is legally a vehicle and when ridden on a public road comes under the jurisdiction of police; ie, if plod tells you to stop, you have to stop.
Hmmmm…I’m slightly
Hmmmm…I’m slightly conflicted here.
Silly old grandad! What the hell is he doing, taking out an 8yr old without a helmet? Much as I hate to bring up the spectre of Savile, those old seatbelt ads, “clunk, click, every trip” were true. It’s the one time you DON’T do the right thing that sht happens. If his granddaughter had fallen off and got a head injury, how would he feel?
Coppers pulling them over? It’s a bit nanny state, but I can see where they’re coming from. But no, let silly old granddad do his thing, it’s a free country.
Matter of fact, maybe it SHOULD be compulsory for a child to wear a helmet, until 16, when they can make up their own mind?
Vo2Maxi wrote:
By which time they will have been fully conditioned and will believe that cycling is dangerous but a helmet will make them safe?
No. Tackle the cause, not the symptoms.
I have a cousin who in the
I have a cousin who in the 1990’s told me that he would not ride a bicycle on the road as it was too dangerous. I never felt it was that dangerous. In those days I would not have dreamed of wearing a helmet because as a child in the 70’s and 80’s the helmets were minimalist and on my opinion useless. When I started cycling regularly again in about 2013 I wore a helmet. I do wonder why some say wearing a helmet would put them off cycling. It does not really make sense to me. I am sure their logic is sound but I cannot get onto their line of thinking.
I do think the police could have handled this better but I am not sure why lights and sirens would scare anyone, nor should the police stopping you to have a word be considered frightening. In fact the police should never be thought of as frightening.
JLasTSR wrote:
Should.
As for kids – they may pick this up from adults, or have bad memories of an incident requiring the emergency services (who may have behaved entirely properly).
In fact lots of different groups of people may find the police frightening, including those who have absolutely nothing to hide. It doesn’t take e.g. a mental health crisis or paranoia for this to be a concern. See Baroness Casey Review, Stephen Lawrence Independent Review, Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report, …
JLasTSR wrote:
A sudden loud noise behind you is startling at the very least. Anyone with noise anxiety is going to unhappy too.
As far as I can tell, the main reasons behind not wanting to wear a helmet are comfort issues or not wanting the extra hassle of carrying a helmet around. I think it’s more common with casual or commuting cyclists that are only going a short distance and having to have, find and wear a helmet just seems unnecessary.
With some roadies, it could be recognising that a helmet does next to nothing if you get driven into by a driver and that they otherwise never fall off. MTBers are much more likely to wear a helmet AFAIK as it’s not unusual to fall off and hit trees etc.
Personally, I choose to wear a helmet and luckily it’s only been of use against low hanging branches.
hawkinspeter wrote:
No low hanging branches on my commute, so I don’t bother with a helmet. Riding off road I wear a helmet, riding in a cycling group where there is a possibility of touching wheels, I wear a helmet. It’s all about assessment of the risks, and I don’t consider a 3 mile bike ride to be sufficiently risky to justify a helmet. Just as I do not don a helmet to cross the road or walk into town.
I honestly think more health expenditure would be saved by mandatory helmets for the over 70s than for cyclists. They are the group most prone to falling over and ending up in A&E.
If my MiL is anything to go
If my MiL is anything to go by, they need hip, ankle and wrist protectors !
wycombewheeler wrote:
Hoy, hoy! I yam over 70 and don’t fall over. (Of course, the time may come ….. when I’m 103). I fell over a lot more in my teens and 20s than since although rarely from a bicycle. The chromed steel rims of me teenage years bike was a a bit of a bend-in-the-rain trap, see?
Agist, that then, wot you propose. I would have reported you to the Greater Awoken One for inclusion in the re-education camps but there’s no such person and no such thing, despite what Cruella says. Perhaps I will set up such things meself, just to annoy LifL and Phil the Stiffneck? (Or will it actually please them immensely)?
Cugel wrote:
I don’t fall of my bike either, but still there are those that insist I should wear a helmet as it’s common sense and it might save a life. But the figures from A&E show that the largest group of patients are the over 70s, not cyclists.
wycombewheeler wrote:
I reckon they should make all patients wear helmets, because they’ve proved they’re vulnerable.
JLasTSR wrote:
Would mandatory wearing of a helmet on a train put you off from travelling by train, or not?
The train puts me off quite
The train puts me off quite enough thanks. I am against almost anything being mandatory. I still wear a helmet when cycling and having gone head first into a car a mile from home I can only say I am glad I did.
Really dont understand the
Really dont understand the issues raised in the comments about the police scaring these riders. If the police had to get to a separate emergency, should they not put sirens and lights to avoid scaring people?
I don’t remember reading that
I don’t remember reading that the adult cyclist was scared. I can understand why an eight year old child would be scared though.
I think it’s the difference
I think it’s the difference between being scared by a loud noise and being scared that you have done something wrong and are going to be arrested.
I wouldn’t expect an 8 year old to know they have done nothing wrong and stand up to the police like her grandfather did.
I am older than 8, yet I would have a flash of fear if the police ran their sirens and pulled me over like this.
*Edit: I definitely clicked to reply to “Left_is_for_Losers”, not sure why it has put it against “polainm”‘s thread
Quote:
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There was no emergency.
There was no emergency.
Policing like this, is all
Policing like this, is all about misdirected ‘danger’. It is not dangerous to cycle on the road, unless at speed among numerous pedestrians. Then, it can be dangerous.
The danger is drivers – too many, too fast, too heavy, too ignorant. The ones on bike camera footage that the police very very rarely obtain a prosecution for.
Following police rationale here, I should wear a stab-proof vest whenever I travel to London, because walking among violent criminals is dangerous.
Quote:
Where is the danger coming from?