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news
David Lang (Police Scotland)Cyclists "increasingly fearful" after death of "very experienced" rider in collision, as police increase patrols and urge near miss reporting to "deter dangerous driving and protect cyclists"
Police Scotland faced questions from cyclists over "measures being taken to protect vulnerable road users", the force stating that it would increase patrols and take reports of close passes "seriously" following the death of a "very experienced" cyclist in a collision last month.
David Lang was hit in a collision involving the driver of a car in Eaglesham, a village in East Renfrewshire around 10 miles south of Glasgow. Following the collision on Thursday 16 January he was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for treatment but died five days later.
Police Scotland said enquiries into the death are ongoing, but the incident has also sparked road safety concerns from local cyclists who are "increasingly fearful". STV reports the force has faced questions from riders, while a councillor also revealed that people are airing "concerns continually" about the dangers of cycling on the area's roads.
At a council meeting attended by Police Scotland, East Renfrewshire councillor Caroline Bamforth told the force that the "tragic incident" involved a "very experienced and well-regarded cyclist" and has "stirred up some concerns". Mr Lang was killed on Polnoon Street, but many of the concerns raised have been about the A77 Ayr Road nearby — the "most cycled route in south Glasgow", according to Cllr Bamforth, but one that "remains the most dangerous for cyclists".
A constituent contacted the councillor to ask the police what action would be taken to "deter dangerous driving and protect cyclists", a quarterly update from the police having contained "no information about what measures are being taken to protect vulnerable road users".
"Tragically, we are mourning the loss of a fellow cyclist this week, a member of my cycling club, following a collision with a driver," the constituent said. "This tragedy has left our club shocked and increasingly fearful, particularly as several members have been hit by drivers in the past six months."
Cllr Bamforth accepted that some of the concerns would be more relevant to the council, notably the "people contacting me about cycle lanes and wanting more", as well as those asking for double yellow lines and deterrents to parking in existing cycling infrastructure.
However, suggesting that these measures would take investment and time, she questioned what Police Scotland is doing to "deter dangerous driving and protect cyclists" in the meantime.
Chief superintendent Lynn Ratcliff of Police Scotland confirmed Mr Lang's death is "very much under investigation" and offered condolences to his family and friends.
"What's really important for us is that incidents involving cyclists are reported to us," she said. "We know from working with various cycling groups across the city that it is traditionally under-reported.
"I think there are a lot of reasons for that. One of them may well be that there may be a perception that the police won't take those reports seriously. We absolutely do, we absolutely will.
We will try over the course of the coming weeks to get additional officers up into the area. First of all, it gives us a visible presence and can act as a deterrent, but it allows us to gather information a little bit and understand what those issues are. Once we have got a better idea of what the challenges are in the area, we can look to develop a bespoke plan."
The chief superintendent added that education is "key" and said the force would re-run 'operation close pass'. She also encouraged cyclists to "report near misses or incidents where vehicles and cyclists come together".
One reason perhaps why reports from cyclists have been "traditionally under-reported", as Ratcliff suggested, may be the lack of online reporting portal in Scotland, something that is soon to be rectified.
"After years of complaints that delays to the introduction of a dedicated road safety reporting tool and inaction on the part of the Scottish government and Police Scotland were putting the lives of cyclists across the country "at risk" and making the roads "less safe", it has been confirmed that following a successful pilot scheme in Dundee, a new third-party video evidence-sharing tool will be rolled out across Scotland by the autumn.
It will mean that cyclists no longer have to report incidents via the Police Scotland Online Reporting Form, a method often criticised by those who have used it as time-consuming, complicated, inconsistent, and reliant on the attitudes of the officers dealing with the complaint, potentially deterring riders from submitting footage given the increased time and inconvenience of reporting incidents to the police.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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26 comments
she questioned what Police Scotland is doing to "deter dangerous driving and protect cyclists"
She should wonder no longer: it's bugger-all, just like Lancashire.
My condolences to David Lang's family. It really is terrible.
I have to say, I assume he was going east down Polnoon st. It's steep, straight and long enough to build up a good bit of speed, on what is a little village road with lots of parked cars. Usually quiet, but, just takes one car driver to move off without looking, unfortunately.
Didn't realise vehicles had eyes.
Haha... edited my comment with s/car/car driver/
It it is insane that we watch people drive down our streets at 90mph and there is nothing we can do about it.
Starmer could solve this and aid road repairs in one easy fell swoop.They need to legislate dash cams/head cams etc as detection devices(speed mainly) and pay a bounty from fines imposed.Whilst the far right love speeding for many a selfish reason, putting all this money into pothole repairs sways the vote!
You could even advance this to normal crime and put that money back into the community. Police prefer an easier life so many a win there too.
That's nothing! Apparently cyclists are having to do 50mph+ trying to keep up with them!
You're right! There's nothing the far right (or even the slightly conservative small c majority of folks) like as much as a cyclist with a camera! "Snitches" are cool as witches.
And the police would be delighted too - witness how the likes of Lancs Police and Police Scotland have rushed to embrace this aid to them just sitting in the office processing stuff on-screen.
Cyclists would love it also - who doesn't love buying expensive kit, keeping batteries charged, checking date and time, getting abuse from drivers*, doing hours of admin work after a ride, all for the benefit of others? And then having the money generated poured into holes in the road, which will shortly reappear. Obviously that's fair because of the effect of those high-pressure cycle tyres though!
* TBF this can happen irrespective of camera-wielding status.
Won't be necessary with Starmer's AI Revolution - it can all just be automatically uploaded to the cloud and scanned for offences.
wtjs can supply the police training data for their model also! (I think Police Scotland / Lancs already have it set up...)
Can we also look forward to it duplicating the existing "we know them, so we don't know them" feature police operate e.g. a system linked to Elon's companies ignoring any offenses by Tesla robotaxis ("couldn't identify ... no offense committed ...")?
"What's really important for us is that incidents involving cyclists are reported to us,"
Take a stroll beside a busy junction at rush hour and you'll see countless drivers being distracted by phones. Then watch lines of them go through the red lights at speed. Stay a bit longer and you'll see something more extreme like a pedestrian on the crossing have to step back or run forwards so they're not run over. It's right in front of everyone every day. Why are they asking us to film and report incidents (resulting in NFA / a letter) when it would be so easy for them to do something about dangerous driving.
Police Scotland are the worst with cycl7sts where i am .I made over 20 reports before giving up .1 was being overtaken on a bl7nd corner on a solid solid white at 40kph close passing too .The officer asked " what's wrong with that " after slightly raising my voice asking if he was joking he threatened to arrest me .
That was the day I gave up with my cameras
I once had the civvie door keeper warn me my phone would be confiscated for evidence. I told him the footage was on a card and I had a Dropbox link which shut him up. He changed his tune a lot of weeks later when I got clattered and was very sympathetic when I was collecting the remains of my bike. I told him that's the reason I kept handing in the footage to stop this nonsense. Got no response.
There's also the specific problem around where this Specific accident happened, it's a very steep very fast road with lots of parked cars and limited visabilty for cars pulling out of the side streets and houses.
it's always been sketchy to cycle and a collision has always been foreseeable and with investment it might have been preventable especially as it's clearly part of a very popular cycling loop up the Ayr road and back accross eaglesham moor
What's really important for us is that incidents involving cyclists are reported to us," she said. "We know from working with various cycling groups across the city that it is traditionally under-reported.
"I think there are a lot of reasons for that. One of them may well be that there may be a perception that the police won't take those reports seriously. We absolutely do, we absolutely will
This may come as a surprise to some on here, but I really detest and despise the lying, hypocritical police
[Snip]
One reason perhaps why reports from cyclists have been "traditionally under-reported", as Ratcliff suggested, may be the lack of online reporting portal in Scotland, something that is soon to be rectified.
[Snip]
Soon?
I'm in my mid-fifties. Will I see this portal in my lifetime?
Not just the lack of a portal. The fact that many polis are totally apathetic when you go to the station and that the Fiscal won't even progress anything if you've not been hurt. I finally gave up because of this. Even the handful of times I had an officer willing to do something wasn't sufficient to encourage me to continue.
Police Scotland caring about cyclists? Pull the other one.
This is a societal problem, with dangerous driving, speeding and motonormativity being accepted behaviour. It's taken generations to get here, with pedestrians and cyclists being driven off the roads (literally) and it's going to take another couple to reverse it. We can demand that the police do something, but until dangerous driving becomes unacceptable to society at large, they are in a losing game.
Amen, brother.
(Although we might ask - how did "seatbelts in cars" and "a bit less drink driving" come about? (Or even Brexit?!) Did the people move the politics / propaganda, or was it the other way round - were they led?)
Luckily we have some examples of "how to get there from here". Unfortunately they don't involve basically keeping the status quo and only losing the bad bits. It's more of a transformation... (Seville, Paris, Oslo, Friedenberg...)
We didn't have social media pumping out a steady stream of hate when they introduced seat belts and drink driving. I can't bear to look at comment threads on videos involving cyclists any more. It's impossible to distinguish between trolls and people who really believe the bile they are writing. I can't think of any other group to whom it would be acceptable to openly confess doing violence or intending to. Incels might say such things about women, but they're not so public about it. It's an insidious drip-feed of othering, and people who work for the police and the judiciary are also members of society who are exposed to the same hate.
There's a lot about, and once you're "woke" or sensitised to it it's hard not to see it. However I think it's essentially a category difference if you compare that to misogyny...
I don't spend mental energy worrying about whether I'll get run over if I use the alley behind a shop and nobody is there, or if in a 1:1 meeting my boss will suddenly turn into a car and try to close-pass me if I'm not wearing hi-vis.
But I do think that some of this comes from similar places eg. people not sufficiently conscious of their own power or uncaring about the effect on others. And also sometimes fear of losing priveledge / anger at a lack of status. And "others" "cheating" eg. getting advantage by "not playing by the rules".
And I suspect (as always) where people seeking attention (convertible to money, or power) see complaints and bad feeling in a group, they see a reserve of energy they can exploit...
This is the government 'For Change' massive opportunity for joined up government at:
Department of Transport
Department of Health
Department of Culture Media & Sport
to see that they can never build all the infrastructure required for Active Travel so must address the root cause, the attitude and behaviour of motorists that it's acceptable to threaten or harm vulnerable road users.
The mainstream and social media play a decisive part in shaping the attitude and behaviour so must change now.
Given the existing Equality legislation the initial step is to make Cycling a protected characteristic so that media cannot indulge in the daily fail confirmation bias of anti-cyclist drivel. From that they can progress the Vision Zero agenda. Without that, they will fail. Failure is not acceptable.
Let's be completely clear here. Infrastructure has nothing to do with it. Cyclist deaths are caused by drivers not following the rules of the road, encouraged by a culture of acceptance of rule breaking and an almost complete lack of enforcement of rules and marginal consequences for breaking them.
Follow the rules and nobody dies.
Yes in a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" sense. And I can only agree on the "culture of not taking driving seriously. Or only in the sense that "I have a (sacred?) Right to Drive and anything which conflicts with that is some kind of oppression".
And this has come about partly through "but it costs to employ police and people push back against restrictions" and frank collusion and bribery on the political side.
And "Police Scotland" - engaged in a fight to the bottom with Lancs police in terms of being the bad driver's favourite force.
But looking at this from a "hazard control" perspective hoping that people will always follow the rules is (generally) naive *. That's why "rules" ("administrative controls" I think) are pretty low on the Hierarchy of Hazard Controls. (I'd also question the assertion "follow the rules and nobody dies" anyway, in the relatively unconstrained environments of our roads).
Unfortunately that involves fundamental transformation of our transport and public spaces, starting with challenging the most basic assumptions...
notice how there is no statement on what they will do differently with reports of bad driving.
Easiest solution: mandate that all police officers MUST spend some time on patrol, in plain clothes, on bikes during rush hour. Only when they personally experience it will they take it seriously