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news
Passing distance (West Midlands Police).jpgCamden police to copy West Midlands close-pass initiative
Met Police are to copy the close-pass initiative recently launched by West Midlands Police. They have warned drivers in Camden to give cyclists room, adding that the rider in question could be a police officer.
West Midlands Police recently announced a new scheme which sees a traffic officer riding the most vulnerable locations for cyclists looking to instantly act upon close passes, distracted driving and so forth. When passed too close, the cycling officer lets a colleague up the road know and the motorist is stopped.
BikeBiz reports that something similar may be on the cards in Camden. Sergeant Clarke of the Camden Town with Primrose Hill police station tweeted:
Copying @WMPolice cycle safety enforcement @MPSCamandPrim will b doing same.If you drive in camden give @camdencyclists room #couldbepolice
— Sgt Clarke (@MPSCamdenTnSgt) September 16, 2016
The new approach came about following analysis of road traffic collisions involving cyclists in the West Midlands region. Police concluded that rather than telling motorists to ‘look out’ for cyclists, their time and effort was best spent enforcing the law, “thus creating a scenario whereby should someone not give a cyclist the time and space necessary or fail to see them completely they should expect to be prosecuted.”
The initiative has been hailed by Cycling UK as the “best cyclist road safety initiative ever.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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7 comments
I'd love to hear the responses, I bet it won't be "I gave him plenty of room" or "it's ok because I didn't hit him", which is the typical response you'll get as a cyclist.
As much as I think this is a step in the right direction, there's just not going to be enough police doing this to make much difference. What they should be doing is working on accepting and properly dealing with reports/videos sent in by the public. There's far more of us cyclists than there are police, and if it's made easy enough, we'd happily send in video clips of close passes if we thought the police would actually do anything.
The met have already admitted they've let us down badly when the police chief says they wouldn't cycle in London, too dangerous.
The only issue with this is 1 just doing it in Camden and 2 saying they are just doing it on Camden.
“thus creating a scenario whereby should someone not give a cyclist the time and space necessary or fail to see them completely they should expect to be prosecuted.”
I thought plod's job was all about making people feel good in the community and posting on social media these days, not finding naugty people and nicking 'em....
Why have they finally remembered what they are for?
I live in the north of the borough and shall be keeping my fingers crossed that this actually happens. As a rule of thumb our local officers are very good at nicking bin-diving fregans and keeping UK Uncut picnickers off of Lord Freud's lawn, not so good at traffic policing.
I think the most important bit of all this is the use of plain clothes policemen on bicycles.
As we know, British drivers on the whole obey traffic law only when they think they will get caught if they don't.
Good intentions here, will check in again to see the resolve and results. But for now, good on them.