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news
RLJ Deliveroo rider (via MerPolTraffic on Twitter).PNGVideo: Police in Liverpool pull over red light jumping delivery cyclists who had passed unmarked car
Police in Liverpool have posted footage to social media of two food delivery cyclists riding past an unmarked police car and through a red traffic light.
In each case, the cyclist – the first working for Uber Eats, the second in a Deliveroo uniform – was pulled over and spoken to by the officers from Merseyside Police’s Road Policing Unit.
Both videos were posted to Twitter on Sunday evening, with the first shot at the junction of Hanover Street and Duke Street, according to the Liverpool Echo.
With unmarked vehicles we see people doing things they wouldn’t normally do when a marked police car is around. #reported and lucky he reacted to the lights and sirens and wasn’t hit by the oncoming car. pic.twitter.com/KkFWfzDI2s
— Roads Policing Unit (@MerPolTraffic) January 7, 2018
The second video, captured by a camera in the same police car, was filmed a little later a short distance away.
20 minutes later, same unmarked car, a few streets away and there’s another cyclist who can’t be bothered waiting at red light. Stopped & #reported. We will prosecute all and any vehicles who contravene red lights without lawful excuse #safetyfirst #noexcuse pic.twitter.com/XoKRaHgPRO
— Roads Policing Unit (@MerPolTraffic) January 7, 2018
In the first tweet, Merseyside Police’s Road Policing Unit said: “With unmarked vehicles we see people doing things they wouldn’t normally do when a marked police car is around. #reported and lucky he reacted to the lights and sirens and wasn’t hit by the oncoming car.”
The subsequent tweet read: “20 minutes later, same unmarked car, a few streets away and there’s another cyclist who can’t be bothered waiting at red light. Stopped & #reported. We will prosecute all and any vehicles who contravene red lights without lawful excuse #safetyfirst #noexcuse.”
A spokesperson for Deliveroo, which began operating in the city in 2015, told the Liverpool Echo: "Road safety is a priority for Deliveroo. It is a condition of our agreement with riders that they abide by the Highway Code and rules of the road.
"We have been in touch with police and will co-operate however we can.”
Meanwhile, an Uber Eats spokesman told the newspaper: “The safety of the couriers that use the app and the travelling public is a top priority for us.
"All Uber Eats couriers are required to obey UK road and traffic laws, and any reports of dangerous behaviour can result in a courier losing access to the Uber Eats app,” he added.
In November, we reported how a senior police officer in Leicester believed that the commission-based wages offfered by companies such as Deliveroo were acting as an incentive for some of their delivery riders to break the law.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Send the details to UK network rail and Transport for Wales as well!
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35 comments
@Pudsey Pedaller Thanks for the articulation, that makes more sense to me, clearly wasn't picking up on what Fluffy was getting at although my point was slightly tangential to that. Cheers
Going through a red light at speed on a bicycle can cause serious harm or death to others if the cyclist were to hit a pedestrian. This is why it is illegal, not a hard concept to understand. Don't try and justify it with comments along the line of "it is safe and rarely hurts anyone" because the same could be said for close passes but that does not mean that we should have to suffer them.
Having said the above, I can understand how cyclists can get into the habit of going through red lights. I have encountered far too many sensor activated traffic lights that will not activate for cyclists alone, even ones on roads with a segregated cycle lane! When you experience this on a regular basis I can see why cyclists would ignore red lights, especially if your journey is time sensitive (deliveroo, courier, Uber Eats etc.) so you can't afford to wait just in case the traffic lights will activate for you. Also when some traffic lights have advances stop boxes (ASB) and others don’t, when you filter to the front to find that there is no ASB then you may have to cross the line anyway to stay safe. If you are having to cross it anyway they it may be safer to continue on to remove risk.
So I suppose what I am saying in conclusion is that cyclists should not go through red lights, but the infrastructure needs to be good enough and consistent enough to enable cyclists to not have to.
I'll agree with all of that.
I'd also add that phasing can also be an issue - there's a very annoying set of lights on my commute that are part of a bigger junction and are intended to allow pedestrians and cyclists on a cycle track to cross that bit of road when the rest of the phasing allows. So far, so good. Where this falls over, though, is that there's no sensor on the cycle lane, so the lights go red regardless of whether there's any bikes approaching, or not, and you end up feeling like a twit waiting there for no reason when no-one's crossing. Bizarrely, the pedestrian part of the crossing has the buttons to request crossing, which appear to activate both the pedestrian crossing and the bike crossing, so not sure why there aren't buttons on the bike part to activate both, which would make more sense.
There are at least 3 sets of lights I can think of where a bike doesn't activate them and 1 set that aren't even triggered my my motorbike - I tend to avoid that set, if at all possible, because you could be there for ages waiting for a car to come along.
Good on the Deliveroo riders, I want my takeaway hot! *runs for cover*
Ironic from a cold soup...
But you are still talking as if 'cyclists' are some sort of collective entity.
I'm going to carry on being angry when a motorist puts my life at risk, and whether every single person who ever gets on a bike obeys all laws or not has nothing at all to do with it. I want 'respect' (i.e. not have my life put at risk) because it's a human right, it is not dependent on whether others jump red lights or not.
And furthermore, it's a fallacy to think motorists will all behave better if cyclists all miraculously stopped jumping reds. It won't make any difference - some motorists behave badly because it benefits them to do so, not because a cyclist somewhere jumped a red.
On top of that there remains a real moral difference between rule-breaking that puts others in danger (close passing) and that which doesn't (cyclist turning left on a red, if it's not a ped crossing).
I also think there's a specific issue with delivery people of whatever transport mode. If they are able to easily break the rules then commercial/market pressures will probably mean their pay and employment rules will adjust to the point where it becomes obligatory for them to do so, as they are competing with others who will do it if they don't. Hence if the rules were _consistently_ enforced, they would, as a group, probably end up better off.
Seems to me this race-to-the-bottom effect applies to a lot of professional drivers (and cyclists), especially where there is a lot of casual sub-contracting. It's not entirely their fault, even for those deadly tipper-truck drivers - if the law isn't enforced rigorously then the market will punish good behaviour.
What - like 'motorist' or 'Audi drivers' ?
Agree with the race to the bottom comment, but not sure about the fault part. Having worked in the transport industry, I know we had plenty of drivers who were very efficient but also drove very well - there is a shit load of pressure to be sure, I get your point there, but it's ultimately the decision of the driver/rider how they behave and doing so responsibly doesn't always mean slow, IMO anyway.
Well, yes. I wouldn't suggest that any given motorist has no right to complain about being endangered by something bigger and more powerful than them (a HGV, or, er, a tank?), or to ask for roads to be provided, until every motorist everywhere obeys the law at all times. So I don't think I'm inconsistent there.
Generalisations about drivers of particular brands of car don't seem to actually _endanger_ anyone, by invoking hostility from more powerful road users, even if they might irritate those unfairly subject to them, so I suggest that's not the same either.
My point was more about the inconsitency on here (and elsewhere obviously) between railing against the collective 'cyclist' label and the amount of generalisations going the other way. Never-ending cake and all that.
But that's exactly the point I just answered! (did you not read what you just quoted?)
The problem with the use of the collective 'cyclist' label is that it justifies disregarding the rights of one person on a bike on the grounds that some other person on a bike somewhere once did something wrong. If you can point to someone doing that with 'motorists' as a group (e.g. this motorist ran someone over, therefore no motorists have the right to ask for any roads to be provided for them), please do so and I'll disagree with that as well. So I don't see that you have any point left, there.
It's not a question of disregarding rights - it's the over generalisation i'm talking about. Go look at a cross section of comment threads on road.cc involving cars, use their frankly abysmal effort at a search engine for the word 'Audi' or, better, Google with the 'site:road.cc' option. I know you've seen this on here, you've been around long enough.
I think the point being made is that generalising about Audi drivers is unlikely to result in a change in behaviour toward Audi drivers and certainly not to the extent that it puts Audi drivers at greater risk of harm at the hands of cyclists.
Based on some of the frothing at the mouth anti-cyclist comments you get on stories where a cyclist causes an accident (or is even just involved in an accident) leads me to believe some drivers do drive dangerously around cyclists because of a negative experience or stereotype they have encountered with respect to cyclists.
Having said that, I personally avoid generalising about any group as I see no benefit in doing so. If a road user of any type puts me in danger then I am happy to hold that person and that person only responsible for their actions.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was simply an attempt by Merseyside Police to placate all the drivers who think cyclists get away with jumping red lights because they don't have registration plates. Some of the responses on Twitter suggest that in this respect it worked:
This ignores the fact that by their own admission, Merseyside Police aren't in a position to catch the majority of motorists who jump red lights due to limited resources.
I take no issue with the cyclists being stopped. While there are obvious and significant differences between a cyclist jumping a red light and a driver of a motor vehicle doing the same, it is an offence regardless of the vehicle being used.
I also don't have an issue with it being tweeted. However, considering the recent divisive twitter poll run by An Garda Síochána, I would have hoped for a bit more consideration and balance from Merseyside Police with regard to red light jumping offenders.
Deliveroo riders are possibly the worst cyclists I see on a day to day basis...
The moped riders are no good either.
Some people think it can be safer for cyclists to turn left on a red light, but we do love rules don't we...
It makes perfect sense to me for cyclists to turn left on red. To be honest, I've seen it work in the U.S. with cars (though turning right on red) and I'd be happy for the UK to implement left on red for cars too, though it could cause a lot of confusion initially.
Don’t bitch and moan on here then at the next ‘near miss of the day.’ Let’s break the rules and go through red lights, but then be prepared for close passes and cars honking their horns and passing on the inside when taking a lane at a roundabout.
Thta's a good response, not sure I could better that one.
Bit the latter already happens, resulting in many cyclists being killed whilst the vehicle nor its owner faces no punishment.
I agree with the "all road users should follow the law" principle but see these actions as a bit of an attack as opposed to Liverpool police seemingly giving it the big un against an out group...
"We will prosecute all and any vehicles who contravene red lights without lawful excuse."
Better to prosecute the user of the vehicle. Then you'll realise that, as not all drivers are blind idiots with their phones in their laps passing within inches of your shoulder, that not all cyclists are impatient dick-heads who think they can ignore the road rules.
Police doing their job, nothing to see here.
Liverpool has a major scumbags on dirtbikes problem. Never mind those guys though as you can't catch them.
Good. As cyclists we are the first to complain when a car fails to follow the rules of the road, so why shouldn’t cyclists? We want respect, so obey the law.
I have no issue with the police doing this (delivery cyclists obviously have a major incentive to break the rules if they can get away with it so it might be a good thing if it's made clar that they can't), but sheesh, are you trying to get as many dubious ideas into one post as you can?
Firstly, those complaints your mention tend to be ignored and not acted on. You forget that bit. There's not an equivalence between 'complaining' and actual enforcement.
Secondly your reference to self-driving cars and their rule-following abilties seems a bit premature, given how they are still in the experimental stage.
And as for that last bit of collective-responsibility bollocks - nah, not going along with that. I want not to be killed so...that is dependent on every cyclist as a collective obeying the law? What are you trying to say there?
Do you not remember KITT, that was I’m the 1980s...
No "we" don't want respect.
That's your unique issue, to do with your inherent lack of self worth.
What "we" want is for motorised traffic use to not result in "us" being killed or injured.
Some poor bugger working for Deliveroo is going to get hurt, not hurt someone else if they go through a red light.
Whatever! I don’t know if you drive, but if I hit a cyclist through no fault of my own and they were killed or badly injured, I think it might affect me too!
As for the respect bit, there is nothing wrong with expecting motorists to respect other road users. Respect means ‘having due regard for others.,’ an important part of using roads in my opinion.
I agree about going through a red for the most part however people on bikes present such little harm to others doing so even in places like London where it's rife (but stil no more than motor vehicle drivers)there's zero evidence of the action being a problem area. Unlike motorists whose light running does hence why the lights were introduced.
I also disagree with the respect aspect, from your viewpoint every single motorist deserves to be disrespected, hated, vilified and physical/verbal attacks be brought directly to all AND be justified because of their lack of respect for the law and not keeping the peace.
I/WE as human beings riding bikes want the authorities to just scratch the surface of the criminality that is going on on the roads, the crimes that kill and maim 24,000 people annually despite all the in built protective systems, that injures 160,000 every year and threatens lives with close calls (an assault) by the millions).
It's very clever how scouse plod post up two examples, but it highlights their discrimination/bias. Why not the tens of thousands of red light jumpers in Liverpool area the same day by motorists, why not highlight the serious injuries and criminal activity on scouse roads that puts two people delivering on a bicycle into insignificance not just from a numerical POV but from the damage to individuals and society.
Typical agenda driven release by certain forces, contrast that to WMP that understand where the real issues lie
Jumping red lights is wrong. I don't drive my car very often. Today I had to drive across three traffic light controlled islands. In the time I was sat there, probably less than a minute in total, I saw 4 cars and 1 lorry go through a red light. No bikes. Carlisle.
Camera quality is shocking, no wonder it's hard to identify officers that are a little excessive in their use of reasonable force.
P.S. These are not cyclists, these are riders...
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