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news
Four cyclists fined after Surrey Police stops group ride for ignoring red light (@SurreyRS/Twitter)Four cyclists fined as police force shares footage of group ride stopped for ignoring red light
A group ride in Surrey was stopped by police this weekend, with all four cyclists issued fixed penalty notices after "contravening a red traffic light".
In footage shared on social media by Surrey RoadSafe, a partnership between the county's police force and council "working to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Surrey roads", the group of four riders are seen at the front of a queue of stationary traffic at a junction in Esher.
#VanguardRST stopped these 4 cyclists in Esher after they were observed contravening a red traffic light. FPN's issued to all.#vulnerableroadusers #fatal5 pic.twitter.com/np612MNx62
— Surrey RoadSafe (@SurreyRS) January 14, 2024
Turning right off Copsem Lane (A244) onto Milbourne Lane, the traffic lights are seen on red when the group made the turn at 8:40am on Saturday 13 January, according to the date and time seen on the police car's recording system.
As the riders made the right turn a police vehicle was being driven just behind, the driver rolling up to the stop line as the group turned across the junction, the police following moments before the group was stopped and issued fixed penalty notices.
"Vanguard Road Safety Team stopped these four cyclists in Esher after they were observed contravening a red traffic light," Surrey RoadSafe told followers on social media. "FPNs issued to all."
The video has been viewed more than 75,000 times since it was uploaded to social media this morning, sparking hundreds of replies. Some have questioned why the force chose to share a video showing the group already across the stop line, cycling lawyer for Leigh Day law firm Rory McCarron suggesting it would be "surely more dangerous for them to wait in the junction?"
> Should cyclists be allowed to ride through red lights? Campaigners split on safety benefits
"Why is this video unnecessarily cropped to show the cyclists already passed the stop line and not crossing this when the light is red?" he asked. "Surely more dangerous for them to wait in the junction? Highway Code: 'Red means 'Stop'. Wait behind the stop line on the carriageway'."
Replying to another response, he added: "I don't in any way dispute some cyclists contravene traffic signals and I don't endorse that in any way. If you are law enforcement posting offences for public awareness — make sure you show the actual offence being committed. This doesn't."
Another comment, from Dave McCraw, said: "It would be nice if the video showed an offence, since the way that junction works is for traffic to sit in the right lane past the white line at which point they are free to turn even on red. I'm sure it happened, but the video shows no offence."
"You should have shown the offence, that would have stopped all these challenges," a third response suggested. However, others have argued it would be more constructive to use the case as an example that cyclists jumping red lights are subject to police action too, the claim to the contrary often heard from certain anti-cycling types.
> "Why I skip red lights": Journalist makes the case for cyclists riding through reds
Real Gaz on a proper bike, author of the Cycling South Tyneside website, said: "Cycling Twitter can be its own worst enemy sometimes. Police post a video with some cyclists being done for crossing a red light. To the halfwits out there that's clear cut. Use it to show cyclists don't get a free pass, rather than arguing the far end of a fart."
road.cc contacted Surrey Police for comment but had not received a reply at the time of publication.
Despite the claims of some, we regularly see police action against cyclists ignoring red lights, a September 'Vulnerable Road User' initiative in Edinburgh resulting in cyclists fined.
In February 2022, officers in the London Borough of Hackney reported fining 18 cyclists during a 90-minute operation.
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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84 comments
They shouldn't 've gone through the red light.
What I see in the loveliness of the newspaper comment columns is the endless repetition of the driver bullshit that cyclists are all RLJ-ers, have no lights at night and are pavement riders - those things are fixed in drivers' minds as happening "all the time". Drivers are also doing their utmost with using cycle lanes, helmets and hi viz: "surely as a responsible cyclist..."
BTW all of this bollocks will be pumping through the veins of Reform if - Lord help all of us - they ever get anywhere near power.
Anyway, add to all that the observable reality that every day drivers RLJ, speed, pavement park, crash into buildings and use 'phones, etc but (a) it happens so much that a lot people have stopped noticing all but the biggest whoppers and (b) drivers no longer see these things as wrong when they do them - the cutting down of speed cameras and the general dissing of the police ("catch some real criminals", "it's all about the fines", "they just want to control 'us'") bear this out.
As pressure on road space grows, breaking the rules will get seen by drivers as necessity - coming up soon: "how else am I supposed to get to work/ school pick up on time, you tell me".
When will people just accept the world is full of idiots. Some drive, some cycle, not all drive, not all cycle. The mode of transport and their behaviour and not somehow intrinsically linked. One mode of transport doesn't make the someone act in a particular way. These people are arseholes 24/7 regardless of what they do
I partially agree with this. People are people, but:
... if I'd paid lots of money for an expensive machine - maybe a speedy one, especially one I'd want to show for my mates - and I knew that the chance of me getting stopped for any offense was minimal and the penalties insignificant, and that even if they had a video record I could just say it wasn't me - then ...
... I'd be describing being a driver of a motor vehicle as much as being a cyclist.
I think there are some modifiers of behaviour according to transport mode choice. I'd expect that to be most significant for the prestige mode (driving). Because driving is definitely bound up with "status" (and currently in many countries that's skewed towards "pushy, risk-taking men").
For some people being in a motor vehicle may make them proceed more carefully (don't want to "end up in court" or scratch my motor or even injure someone). For many it seems that it makes them proceed less carefully (including illegally e.g. speeding, pavement driving, "amber gambling" AKA running stop signals etc.) Humans quickly identify with their transport ("did you just hit me (my car)?"). Unfortunately when people have a common human reaction to a situation ("... I'll teach you a lesson!") the driver has forgotten they now have an extremely powerful (and potentially deadly) exoskeleton.
I would expect some cyclists to be a bit less careful about rules. That's partly because cycling is more accessible so some could be children (but some will also be "advanced drivers" on the bike that day!). Plus it's a more "casual" mode due to cycling being far less danger to everyone (hence no plates, testing, insurance requirements ...).
However I'd expect risky behaviour to be moderated by their awareness that cyclists are at risk of injury in any crash, in a way that e.g. motorists or bus passengers just aren't.
So in your first paragraph you condone arseholish behaviour Just because you might have a nice bike? That kinda makes it worse. Not only are you an arsehole you're conscious of the fact and still do it.
You must have lost interest after skimming the first para. Summarised - more likely entitled driver than entitled cyclist.
Longer: I expect there will be slightly different rates of encountering arsehole behaviour from users of different modes - especially in the UK - reasons in my first post.
I read what you wrote, but it pretty much agrees that the world is full of arseholes. Some drive, some cycle etc. you just over elaborate on the same points for no good reason
Close, no cigar.
"The world is full of arseholes" = random, it's on you (the rider / driver / walker) to lookout, nothing else.
Arseholery varies (slightly) by mode = we can do something about it with targetted road design / policing (if police and politicos were minded to...)
A better harm reduction is to reduce the potential damage from the arseholes in the most deadly mode though e.g. by having less driving.
So many words. So little sense.
btw, by having *fewer driving. 👍🏻
You're assuming that he is using driving as a verb and therefore means having fewer people driving. In fact he is using driving as a gerund (noun form), as in the activity driving, and asking a reduction in the quantity of it, in which case "less" is perfectly correct. /pedantry
Yes. But "...having fewer driving less" keeps everyone happy?
I was trying to avoid claxons of "they want to stop me driving!" - it's more that we need less journeys driven
overall!
Chris makes a lot of sense, actually. His posts are well considered, very often thoroughly backed up with relevant links, and I can't recall having read an incensiary or disparaging or insulting comment from him on here (which is not your case).
Totally agree.
You aren't doing yourself any favours with these ad hominen posts.
And I very much doubt the number of drivers is countable.
And some would appear to be in the police force, how difficult is it to get the clip correct first time?
Surrey Police have now released fuller footage which shows the riders undertaking the traffic waiting in the right turn lane, riding through the light on red and turning. Bang to rights, I'm afraid.
https://twitter.com/SurreyRS/status/1746912014071451649
Beat me to it and with the same wording !
Still for the sensible folk not on twitterx
"The cycling trolls will find some other excuse, such as the cyclists only ran the red light because they were being pursued by a Dalek." !
Bang to rights, I'm afraid
But not quite as 'bang to rights' as the rider of PJ23 VMC, who got off scot-free
Quite right they've been prosecuted. Road users can't be selective about which rules to follow.
There's a cost to all law breaking. At one extreme, cyclists going through red light and getting wiped out by vehicle they didn't see is not just a cost to them and their families - it's a cost to all of us. At the other end of the spectrum, Pi****g off other road users by breaking the rules will hurt the cyclists' ligitimate cause for fair treatment.
Road users can't be selective about which rules to follow
What you mean is cyclists can't be selective... I have shown below 3 motorists who decided not to bother with all this confusing 'traffic light' bureaucracy and the police do nothing about it 'because everyone does it'. I also show a motorist who decides to shun the MOT, insurance and VED bureaucracy who will also get away with it. So I'm not about to tolerate without complaint a notion which takes (so far unproven) cyclist RLJs more seriously than, say, an Audi towing a caravan through a red light at speed, so b***** off!
https://upride.cc/incident/t90jdt_audiwithcaravan_rljatspeed/
As Yossarian (I think) says in Catch-22:
What if everyone thought like that?
Then I'd be a damn' fool to think any other way
This is still a very small sample size...four cyclists got fined, there's thousands who don't get fined on a daily basis.
Can apply the same to motorists. 9 mile commute and 10 controlled junctions. There will be at least 3 motorists jump on amber and red at each junction. Have yet to see any pulled over due to the lack of cops about over the last year. Thats over 15000 drivers a year and that's only the ones I physically see on that particular route.
And don't forget those motorists who do stop for a red and those in the queue who are on their phones...
Similar experience to my own - I've lived in three completely different areas over the last decade and those figures tally with my own.
I would encourage those of my fellow cyclists who drive not to be dicks when they're behind the steering wheel. I'd encourage my fellow cyclists when out on two wheels to similarly not behave like dicks. Surely it's really not too big an ask?
That's great, and I agree!
...but what has this to do with road safety though (unless you've got a sure-fire way of preventing all those other people being dicks, and other well-known human deficiencies)?
.
I know it is against the UK law, (legal though in other countries) but it doesn't seem to me that dangerous for other users (apart from the law abiding cyclists themselves) to have it posted by the police.
I don't think Singapore police posts videos of guys leaving toilets without having flushed toilets.
Good.
I suspect there's a high correlation between red lights jumped by cyclists and close passes. For every RLJ there's at least 1 p*ssed off motorist who then doesn't process properly when they see the next rider. If we all just stopped at the damn things, half the impetus behnd crap driving would disapear. ANd yes I know (and regularly rant about) drivers who RLJ at far higher higher speeds and risk ratios, but if we want a soapbox to stand on, we can;t keep kicking it out from under ourselves.
Umm...for everyone complainig that the video doesn't show the offence, isn't that normal for police posts? That they don't show the actual offence in case the cyclists challenge and go to court etc?
As for the post in general, yeah it's pretty tragic they engage in gammon-friendly bait posts like this
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