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news
Essex police logoEssex police: If cyclists were more safety-conscious they wouldn’t get killed
An Essex police officer has claimed that cyclists need to be more safety-conscious to spare families the heartbreak of a visit from an officer bearing bad news.
Speaking to the Essex Chronicle’s Joe Sturdy, PC Deborah Gray said: “If families have to see a white-hatted officer at their door, then it’s horrible because they just know why they are there.
“If cyclists were more safety-conscious then families would not have to see that.”
Police in Chelmsford are currently engaged in an exercise to improve safety and reduce casualties among cyclists. Operation Bluenose is claimed to be targeting both cyclists and motorists, but the force’s statements and press reports make scant mention of drivers.
“Operation Bluenose aims to identify at risk riders and urge them to use more safety equipment such as lights, helmets and high visibility clothing,” the police said when the exercise was announced.
PC Gray said she had spoken to a rider who was dressed entirely in black.
She said: “He said ‘If a car cannot see me he should not be driving’.
“He only wears his helmet when he is going on long cycle rides because he is stop-start, stop-start [in the town].”
As well as telling riders not to wear perfectly normal clothes, police are also encouraging them to wear helmets.
Sergeant Graham Freeman, who is running the operation, said: “The most common response we get is that it’s a man thing [not to wear a helmet]. We think helmets reduce the number of injuries.
“Men do generally not like to wear helmets. I have been to many accidents where cyclists have got head injuries. They can be pretty serious injuries.”
Around 90 cyclists were stopped in Chelmsford on Friday and police had previously stopped around 120 in Basildon.
Sgt Freeman said: “About 50 per cent had no lights and were given verbal warnings. About 50 per cent had no reflective clothing and 75 per cent had no cycle helmet.”
Commenters on the Essex Chronicle’s story are not impressed. PaulM132 said: “Someone should tell Essex Police that there is no legal requirement to wear a helmet, or any particular type of clothing, while cycling. There is no requirement to carry lights - only where cycling in hours of legal darkness.
"And there is certainly no basis for telling cyclist that they are responsible for their own safety. That is like saying that they should wear a bullet proof vest in case a gunman is on the loose.”
One commenter, 04smallmj doubts the crackdown is even necessary: “I used to cycle in Chelmsford a lot and it was probably the best place that I've cycled and lived in, so it's a shame and a bit embarrasing to see this.
"I actually ditched my helmet and hi viz while living there so I would definitely be one of the ‘naughty cyclists’ who have been given victim blaming advice. I also think that the quote ‘we *think* helmets reduce the number of injuries’ says a lot too.”
Izzy_G added: “The health benefits of cycling far outweigh the dangers, whether one wears a helmet or not, so we should be doing as much as we can to get more people on their bikes.
"Campaigns like this, which stress the dangers of cycling do just the opposite by discouraging the very people we want to get on their bikes.”
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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100 comments
Hear, hear - couldn't agree more!
My son passed his test last year aged 17. It was a lot harder than the one I took in 1979 aged 17.
In my opinion the whole idea of a Driving Test is not the right way to do things. We don't let doctors or airline pilots have a single pass/fail test and then issue them with full credentials.
Learning to drive should be an extended course covering all aspects and conditions. When you have enough hours clocked in the various parts of the course and if the instructor is satisfied then that part of the course is deemed complete. You need to complete the whole course.
Many drivers of my age will have had a very simple driving test that almost anyone could have passed. I booked six lessons and a test. I never drove in the rain, at night, on a dual carriageway, down country lanes or in heavy traffic such as the rush hour before I had a licence. The test was driving round Bournemouth on roads I knew. Starting on a hill, reversing round a corner, a 3 point turn and by virtue of not hitting anything and answering 3 questions on road signs and markings I earned a licence at age 17 to drive all kinds of vehicles, in all kinds of conditions and on some kinds of roads I had never driven before.
We need rigorous extended courses not one off tests.
Henry Louis Mencken: "For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong."
And this was definitely a wrong use of police time and PR machine.
I take your general point but I have to take issue with this. There is quite a lot that could be done to protect everyone (cyclists, pedestrians, horse riders, motorcyclists and indeed other motorists) from the more idiotic drivers out there.
1 Top of the list would be to change the attitude of the police to road safety.
2 Markedly increase the chances of being caught speeding.
(this equated to the "broken windows" theory in criminology. ie if you allow seemingly minor offences or behaviours to be seen as normal then you just lower the bar for other more serious crimes.
3 Once you have increased the chances of being caught and such that drivers think it is likely they will be caught not unlikely, then increase points penalties to a realistic level. Points work because they effect drivers equally whatever their income.
4 Get the CPS to use the laws properly. Careless is careless. Dangerous is dangerous. Don't prosecute for careless driving when the driving was in fact dangerous.
5 Stop giving persistent offenders their licence back each time or if you do, then not so damn quickly. And on a returned licence affix permanent points so they know that one more even minor offence and they could lose it again. Three strikes and you are out (banned permenantly) for major offences. ie where 6 or more points are given on a single offence. Lifetime points. A ban not just on offences on a rolling 4 year period but a total lifetime number acquired. I suggest 24.
6 Allow the Police Force / Local Safety Camera orgs to keep a good proportion of the fines to invest in more detection and enforcement. Speeding and offending drivers are then paying for enforcement. Enforcement technology and extra traffic officers are therefore self financeing and an investment.
I could go on but you get my drift.
There is actually plenty that can be done about idiot drivers.
You give them too much credit. That's not 'what the police are saying here'. What the police woman said was “If cyclists were more safety-conscious then families would not have to see that.” Nothing about lessening odds, just a categorical statement that is simply and obviously false and which carries a nasty whiff of victim blaming for those previous cases of dead cyclists she claims to be talking about.
Given that the fatal error is most frequently on the part of the motorist, if cyclists were more safety-conscious there would be at best a small reduction in how often families saw that. Assuming the effort of being so safety conscious didn't just deter people from cycling in the first place, in which case families would more often see family members having heart attacks instead.
Dear commissioner,
I am dismayed and infuriated by the ill informed comments of PC Deborah Gray and utter waste of precious police resources by Essex Police to penalize cyclists in Chelsmford conducting Operation Blue nose. The current government is spending millions of pounds encouraging people to be more active and reduce emissions which have a beneficial effect on the environment and the economy and positively promote the use of the cycle to commute to work, so why oh why are Essex police targeting the cyclist? A cynic would say they are an easy target as opposed to targeting the increasingly aggressive driving manner of many motorists.
I have a few basic questions for you to consider?
How many times has a cyclist killed a motorist or pedestrian in the last 12 months in Essex?
now reverse the question;
How many times has a motorist killed a cyclist or pedestrian in the last 12 months in Essex?
The ignorance surrounding the road safety advice regarding helmets is astounding, are you aware of the 2006 study by Dr Ian Walker from the University of Bath found that drivers passed closer to cyclists wearing a helmet when overtaking than they did to those without them. The driver's subconscious sees them as less vulnerable and therefore less worthy of a wide berth.
I'm sure someone some where had good intentions but this smacks as a victim blaming culture, akin to telling people to not smoke or drink. The police should stick to enforcing the law and not nannying the community they serve. Put simply it isn't there job. There may be a perceived risk but people are not breaking the law by not wearing a helmet, the benefits to the nation and the individual massively out weigh the risks, I could quote a ton of statistics at you to support this but I'm sure you are already aware. The police are on very dodgy ground. To the community it feels like a form of harassment, whatever next advising fat people to lose weight?
"Stopping Distances. Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. "
Highway Code paragraph 126.
This is very clear. It does not mean carry on driving unless you see something in the way. It means, unless you can see that there is nothing in the way, slow down.
I think that this paragraph is ignored by nearly all drivers. I find that if I slow down at night when I try to obey this advice, other cars sit on my back wheel and overtake as soon as possible.
There are sometimes unlit obstructions on the road which offer more resistance than a cyclist.
Are Essex Police doing anything about this dangerous behaviour?
Whilst the authorities are idiots and constantly going about this in the wrong way, you can't deny the obvious benefits of a wee smidgen of common sense.
Whenever I go out on the road I assume everyone in a vehicle larger than my bike wants to brutally murder me. Therefore I make myself as visible as possible, as predictable as possible and as protected as possible (whilst obviously making sure I can still accomplish my objectives as a cyclist). I wear my helmet, it could save my life; I use my lights and I wear bright clothing, which could also save my life.
Why say "there should be no crap drivers on the road, therefore I'll do whatever the f*** I want and if I die it's all their fault", which seems to be what some people on here are advocating. It's a three fronted battle in the end; safer, more user friendly roads; better, more cyclist aware drivers; and better, more safety conscious cyclist.
Common sense.
Nope. You get hit by tonnes of metal and your 12mph freefall hat and banana costume won't help one bit. Start campaigning for www.roadJustice.org.UK now - it's far more likely to save your life.
Slightly missed my point. I know that if a massive HGV decides to pick a fight with you it probably won't end well. My point was not that if WILL save my life, it COULD, and you're certainly more likely to survive wearing high-vis and a helmet than not wearing them.
No, I'm not sure it could. There seems to be almost no reliable evidence for that. Surveys showing a strong benefit to helmets like Thompson, Rivera and Thompson are pretty discredited. Hi-vis doesn't even have that detailed yet. Like so many times, common sense misleads people.
Thanks for signing the petition. Those who take it further and lobby police commissioners will appreciate it.
Yeah, but all I'm saying is anything I can do to make myself safer on the road I will do. If everyone (drivers included, but in terms of protecting cyclists) had the same mentality there'd be fewer deaths on the roads in my opinion.
But contrary to common sense, donning hard hat and hi-vis doesn't make you safer (how would it? The main source of danger are large lumps of metal that they won't stop driven by people who didn't look or failed to see) and it probably deters other people from cycling, which seems to put all remaining riders at greater risk.
As if by magic, an article appeared in the Guardian to explain this counter-intuitive effect and much more besides. Anyone able to post a copy in Essex Police's staff room?
A styrofoam hat will not make you safer if hit by a car. It's not designed to. It will be massively overwhelmed by the impact and make no difference at all. Helmets are as effective as a rabbits foot in your saddle bag or wearing a St Christopher. Emphasis on Helmet use is voodoo for the easily led and people that failed O Level Physics like the spokesperson for Essex Police and BBC Interviewers.
Being visible though might make a difference. Not because drivers shouldn't have to pay attention, they should. But because higher visibility adds to the distance from which they notice your presence. I will separate the helmets from enhanced visibility as a concept (by lights, by positioning and by attire.)
The mantra of advanced driving (and I would say advanced cycling) is TtR = Time to React. The more you give yourself and others the safer roads become. So, for motorists that means slowing down, keeping your distance, not tailgating, signalling properly, giving cyclists and other road users enough space. For cyclists it means riding where you can see and be seen and be seen as early as possible.
OK it depends on what sort of cycling you are doing. Some people are pootling to the shops on well lit urban roads in the middle of the day. I don't think high vis is very useful there. I commute on a mixture of rural lanes and busy A roads on gloomy mornings and dark evenings in the winter and in low and bright sun in other seasons. I want motorists to see me from as far away as possible and have as much time to plan their approach to me as I can help to give them. I hope they are doing their part and slowing down and looking for cyclists. I am not prepared to bet my safety on it. I can control what I do though. I can help them to see me from further away using lights, my road position by considering what I wear. And High viz doesn't mean you have to wear a day glo jacket or tabard just don't go out there dressed as the man from Milk Tray.
+1000000
Expecting motorists' attitudes towards cyclists to collectively change for the better in any of our lifetimes is massively wishful thinking.
Doing what you can to ensure you are seen is, to me, just common sense.
I fear though that in the end it will make no difference. To the extent that cyclists wear high-viz, motorists will just risk-compensate and pay less attention. The end result will be no change in risk for the cyclist but still more time to chat to their passenger or check their mobile for the motorist.
Of course for any individual cyclist it may seem to make sense to take to the lurid colours, its just that collectively we'll likely all end up no better off.
Also, I agree motorists won't change their attitudes, but I would hope that one day road-planners might.
In general I agree, but the biggest problems with that in this situation are:
Firstly, a tiny but still dangerous minority of motorists simply don't care because they believe cyclists should never be on the road. Allowing them to identify you are a cyclist earlier (rather than a pedestrian (daytime) or moped (night, thanks to modern bright lights) or whatever) simply allows them time to decide to pass you without giving any room. The ones who are going to slow down and pass well will probably see you in time enough anyway without hi-vis.
Secondly, there's little evidence that hi-vis (rather than reflectors) in normal road use offers any benefit. Most studies of it have been on things like railway or motorway workers and even then results weren't that strong, largely opinion. In bicycle use, Wood et al http://eprints.qut.edu.au/47281/1/ failed to find significant benefit while Miller http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/2855/ found no change (a insignificant increase, actually!).
I use lights and reflectors at night (I need lights to see where I'm going on dark roads anyway, so might as well) but I'm not a fan of hi-vis except in construction zones. They're another thing that make cycling look more dangerous than it is, which is holding cycling back and stops us unlocking the biggest safety improvement: having relatives of every driver cycling regularly, so they'll always subconsciously think "that could be my mother/brother/cousin/..." when driving near them.
Yep, on a hi-vis jacket/tabard/vest the fluorescent colours are for daytime and the reflective bits for nighttime. I don't bother with fluorescent hi-vis during the depths of winter because there is zero effect. I will use reflective clothing though, particularly on the moving parts, as these will catch someone's attention.
Generally, I would rather be seen, than not seen. That doesn't mean that drivers shouldn't pay more attention or drive more carefully. It just means that I've done my risk assessment, thought, "Hey, it's foggy, I'll pop my lights and hi-vis on, then there's an outside chance that I'll be seen out of the corner of that driver's eye and they'll make a vague attempt to avoid me." In the middle of summer, why wear hi-vis?
Oh, and I wear a helmet, because a) my head gets cold (I'm bald) and b) it hurts slightly less when my head hits the ground.
Someone further up the comments was talking about PPE. PPE is the last resort, if you read your H&S manuals. First remove the risk. So, in this case, take the cars away. Taking them away completely is, perhaps, a step too far. But, taking them away from the vulnerable would do the trick just fine.
Also, signed the petition
I don't think that cyclists should be told what to wear. However, I think there are a lot of cyclists who could help themselves to be more visible to other road users (not just drivers) by wearing clothing that stands out more. It doesn't have to be high vis, but even during the daytime, wearing contrasting clothing may mean that you are seen sooner than if you are wearing all black.
When driving my car in the rain, I was very close to colliding with a cyclists dressed in black, on a black bike with no lights. The lights from the car coming over the hill meant that I did not see the cyclist until the last minute, and luckily for them the traffic lights ahead had turned red so I was slowing down to stop anyway.
While there are cyclists out there who do not wear a helmet or hi-vis, but do have sufficient lights on their bikes, there are also a lot who do not have any of these things (and never do even when out in the dark). They should be advised that they will only help themselves if they make themselves visible to other road users.
oh do piss off and do something constructive like stopping drivers who are using their telephones.
I really do believe that in order to qualify to say anything about cycling safety, people should be obliged to commute by bicycle for a month before they open their mouths.
How about getting some police onto saddles. They could then get an idea about what it is really like out there And put their focus on bad driving and bad cycling rather then concentrating on a pr stunt that only infuriates cyclists and does do nothing to educate drivers.
Apparently this is just publicity for Essex Police's new TV show starting soon called 'Not-a-Crimewatch' in which they ask the public to help them find people who haven't done anything illegal. The first episode will ask viewers to phone in to report cyclists perfectly legally riding without helmets then subsequent shows will deal with tracking down other groups of law abiding citizens such as people who wear brown shoes with black trousers, also not a crime but obviously needing advice from the police. Let's just hope if they run a show asking the public to grass on white stilletos and mullet haircuts in the Essex Police area they've got enough phone lines to deal with the response...
Unbelievable from the Essex Police when they have had so man YouTube Videos sent to them on Close Pass of Drivers!
One I do know came off his Bike when the car cut the junction and nearly hit him!
You want evidence, then just look here at some of theses Videos!
https://www.facebook.com/BadDriverClosePass
They have been submitted that video unedited & straight from the camera & their response is NOTHING! Over a dozen such videos have been offered by me & all been ignored or told its NOT evidence despite the good quality footage. They dont want to know!
So yet again the Police response to the Bull in the China Shop is...
1) Wrap the china in bubble-wrap.
2) Put the china on a higher shelf away from the bull.
3) Blame the china for getting smashed.
Why don't they tether the bull and get it out of the shop?
Because that involves actual and quite boring work, like using a car to patrol actual traffic?
To be honest, and a bit more serious, this sound like something the Spanish introduced a few years ago. All cyclists had to wear helmets, which is fair enough in itself, except that if you weren't wearing a helmet you were more likely to be seen as having to carry more of the blame if involved in an accident.
Is this the more sinister side? In that Essex, as non-friendly to cyclist county, will assume the cyclist has to carry the greater weight of culpability if invovled in an accident and NOT lit up like Blackpool. God forbid drivers actually have to look where they're going.
Their attitude doesn't surprise me at all. Whilst on the Burnham and Baddow sportive a few weeks ago a 4x4 driver pulled across our path coming straight for us and cutting some horse riders up. He then turned around, drove past us and pulled into a lay-by whilst jutting out on the road and had a go at us. I captured all this on my go-pro and reported it. The copper that then come round, saw the video and said he'd go and talk to him but when I said it was 20 miles away he said 'oh thats a bit far away'!! And rather than him pass it on to the local station I should deal with it.
Education is needed on both sides but it only seems like they want to target cyclists.
I would ask the Essex cops if they are going around stopping motorists and asking them if their car journey is really necessary.
Because choosing to drive a car creates far more danger than choosing to ride a bike without a helmet. If you are going to stop cyclists for the latter, then you should also be flagging down motorists for the former, and checking if they really couldn't have used some other, safer, form of transport, or just stayed at home.
As both cycling-sans-helmet and non-essential-driving are legal, I see no logical reason to question people about one and not the other, especially as the evidence that driving a car causes risk is far more solid than that about helmetless cycling.
As on other occasions, I'd say telling ninja cyclists to get lights is a different matter, as (a) there's a law about that and (b) motorists have to have lights as well.
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