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news
Met PoliceCyclist pulled over by police for not riding ‘courteously’
A London cyclist has claimed that she was pulled over by two Metropolitan Police officers who accused her of “putting my own safety before cars”.
In a series of tweets Aileen Rice-Jones, who works in public affairs, explained that she was stopped by the officers while cycling between South Wimbledon and Putney on the A218 Merton Road earlier this week.
This evening on my 5km cycle to Brownies I was pulled over on a blue light by two @metpoliceuk officers.
The reason?
I wasn't cycling very 'courteously' (his words)...
👇— Aileen (@ARiceJones) March 23, 2022
Rice-Jones says that the officers informed her that she wasn’t cycling “very courteously”, forcing motorists to “go to the other side of the road to overtake me – which they should legally do anyway.”
She also claims that the officer admitted witnessing a motorist carry out a close pass on her, but told Rice-Jones that she was at fault.
When Aileen explained to the officers that she was riding in the primary position in the middle of the lane – as “encouraged by the new Highway Code” – they allegedly accused her “of putting my own safety before cars”.
I was accused of putting my own safety before cars.
Of course I will. I have no roll cage, no air bag, no seat belt.
When you hit me, you hit me, not a bumper or a reparable metal object. A person.
— Aileen (@ARiceJones) March 23, 2022
“I also pointed out he was unlikely to have stopped a car going the same speed as me (roughly 16mph),” she said.
She later sarcastically tweeted that it was “great to see how cycling friendly the police are and how prepared they are to take action against people performing close passes”, and said that she would have placed an official complaint if she had taken note of the officer’s badge number.
> Police in Hackney catch 18 red light jumping cyclists in 90 minutes
Many Twitter users criticised the officers’ actions, with broadcaster Jeremy Vine describing the incident as “just incredible” and arguing that there was a “desperate need of intervention here” from the Met.
A former cycling instructor also tweeted: “Such ignorance [from the] police is concerning and harmful, asking you to disregard the Highway Code, and instead put cars ahead of your own safety.”
Another user claimed that the officers in question demonstrated “idiocy, car-worship and misogyny” through their handling of the incident.
The Met’s Cycling Safety Team has contacted Aileen to discuss the issue further.
In February, the Roads and Transport Policing Command was criticised after it tweeted that Safer Transport Team officers in Hackney fined 18 cyclists in the space of 90 minutes for jumping red lights.
One cyclist asked the team “one day could you please send 14 officers to sit at the lights and look for phone drivers? A fiver says you’d get 18 in 10 minutes.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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60 comments
Plod just wanted a reason to meet Aileen..
There's a Dexy's Midnight Runners joke in there somewhere.
Aileen.
Thank you for sharing the story.
Had it been a forward thinking European nation you'd have had the full support of the law. Encouraging more use of the bicycle amongst the population.
In the meantime we'll keep hearing of the pain motorists have to suffer to fill up their cars.
Sell your car!
Save money.
Ride a bike to work.
Change. For the good of us all. Plan it out. Be persistent. You'll feel much better for it.
From the article 'Highway Code changes: ‘What about cyclists, or do the rules not apply to them?’
Well...
As most of that applies to riding in groups, I'm not sure how you are intending that to be read.
The idea that a cyclist is obliged to defer to motorists as a translation of consideration is clearly wrong. Given that the officers apparently acknowledged there was a safety issue, the cyclist is correct to abide by the HWC and ride in a safe position.
Without knowing the exact circumstances, we cannot say whether the cyclist was being deliberately obstructive in a safe passing area, but it would seem not given the safety issue.
Any fule kno that cycling in London, giving way to motorists rarely results in their journey being speed up significantly and quite possibly the cyclist would simply re-pass cars at the next junction, or get stuck behind a car queuing to pass another car parked so as to cause an obstruction.
Not wrong in the slightest. Perfect demonstration of the police deciding all by themselves that cyclists should give deference to motorists, exactly as predicted.
Where is the danger coming from?
Try reading the article.
And, again, where is the danger coming from?
As I said, your comment was ambiguous in the point I think you are trying to make and I originally read it as anti-cyclist. I think we are agreeing, but it doesn't sound like it.
No. Not anti-cyclist at all.
I thought the same about your reply, hence my prickly response. Sorry.
Cycling for the win.
Part of me is curious as to whether the peelers were from Traffic or a pair pottering about in a station car with nothing better to do and out to prove to the passing motorists that they were dealing with perceived anti social cyclists. My experience has taught me that the station cop is pretty clueless regarding road craft. I was pulled in once for being far too out in their eyes. I pointed to the potholes behind and asked if they allowed to drop their nearside wheels into them or if they had swung out as I wouldn't even drive my car through such a mess
My experience has taught me that the station cop is pretty clueless regarding road craft
The same is true of traffic officers, who don't have a clue about which part of a bike is the top, how you make it go, and what the point of the Advanced Stop Line is. Lancashire Constabulary hasn't yet replied to my complaint about the traffic officer who asserted that you're entitled to carry on if you have crossed (it seems to be ill-defined which part of the vehicle has crossed!) the ASL when the lights turn red (Lancashire has abandoned the Highway Code rules about amber lights and you can count them as green here)- the officer asserts that the stop-line you come to after the ASL only applies to cycles because it is "clearly marked" that way. The artic driver below has, according to Lancashire Constabulary, committed no offence
An alternative view, held by me, is that Lancashire traffic is as bent as a £9 note and officers make a part-time living from assisting drivers in not being troubled by traffic offences.
I once had to correct the chief traffic cop when he stated that cyclists could be prosecuted for breaking the speed limit.
This quote should be on a t-shirt! (edited 29/03)
This is absolutely ludicrous
The officer was quite right, and failing to doff your cap, or helmet, to a driver is clearly discourteous to our lords and masters in their cars.
Hasn't Ms Dick been essentially sacked for failing to tackle, amongst other things, misogyny in the Met police? Perhaps these two are friends of Couzens.
In light of that, it can't be easy or not fear-inducing for a woman to be stopped by the police these days can it?
Perhaps she could have flagged down a bus...
Facepalm!
Complain anyway someone can work out which officer it was.
I still think the bravest people in earth a British cyclists not counting the civilian who are victims if war or asshole relationship
In short, a female cyclist being told off by some oafs in uniform who don't know the Highway Code for following the Highway Code.
I don't know the ins and outs of this but the highway code does state that cyclists should pull across and cycle at the side of the road to allow vehicles to pass when it is safe to do so. It isn't just a case of vehicles should only overtake on the opposite side of the road. We have a responsibility to assist vehicles to pass when it is safe.
But I'll make an assumption anyway....
That's when a cyclist decides it's safe for them to do so, not when a driver thinks it is.
Yes it is. The average car is about 1.8m wide, cyclists are 50cm wide and need to ride 50cm minimum out from the kerb, meaning that to pass with the mandatory 1.5m distance a car has to go into the next lane to pass legally unless the lane is 4.3m wide.
The primary responsibility of a cyclist is to keep themselves safe and, as the Highway Code very clearly states, that means riding in the centre of the lane when necessary. It is the responsibility of drivers as the upcoming vehicle to wait until it is safe to pass and they do not have a right to expect cyclists to put themselves in a position where they feel unsafe to allow them to get to the next red light more quickly (where the cyclist feels unsafe, note, not what the driver feels is safe, it's not their call).
Six posts from you as a new user so far and every one anti cyclist, I shall watch your future progress with interest.
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Take care, Rock.
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Trendy Rendy has warned you that he will watch your 'future progress' [Rendy - have you ever heard on any 'previous progress'] with interest.
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Be scared.
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Be VERY scared.
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"The previous progress made towards a peace agreement has been undermined by recent events." Seems your grasp of basic English is as sound as your understanding of politics, road law and humour.
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Why
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do
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you put
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full stops between
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every line you
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write
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You are relentless, Loophole. But also quite thick.
They probably think the C in ACAB stands for cyclists.. so rebellious..
I had to google that
Institutionally anti cyclist
It would appear that from recent press reports that they're not specifically anti-cyclist, more anti-people in general, with a particular animosity towards women and ethnic minorities.
Which is nice. [/sarc.]
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