Road Safety/Cyclists. long one

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
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This is a letter I sent to the local police and newspaper, not been published in the paper, but this is how the correspondence goes between me and PC C.R.O.
I have removed identifying names.
The request from the police officer is, is there anything else he could be doing to help not just cyclists, but other road users.
Suggestions, (clean ones) would be appreciated and will be handed on to PC C.R.O.
Hopefully, there could be benefit to us all.

Dear Humberside Police and Viewpoint of the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, I picked this item from Teletext for your comments and news publication, as the Telegraph will be able to confirm, this is a “hobbyhorse” of mine as I am sick to death of motorists being targeted, but other road users are not.In the my copy of the Highway Code booklet dated 2003, there are SEVEN laws that concern cyclists, and I see these regularly ignored with impunity.We read in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph of occasions where a cyclist has been knocked off, and injured or even killed, at least one of these was in the early hours of the morning without lights, which to me as an ex cyclist, is tantamount to attempted suicide.I truly feel for the relatives of the injured or killed, but would these “incidents” have happened if they had been using the lighting as required BY LAW.I would ask, publicly, that Humberside Police now take action, before someone else is injured or killed, and copy the actions of the Portsmouth Police.Maybe a life could be saved.

“More than 160 cyclists in Portsmouth have been stopped by police in a 10-hour twilight safety crackdown on riding without lights. Road safety and police officers stopped cyclists who were either riding without lights or on the pavement. Police gave the cyclists warnings and told them that they face £30 fines from next week if caught without lights.”

I do understand and accept that the Police are very busy, but would be less so, if cyclists obeyed the laws as set out to protect them.

ps, 160 cyclists in 10 hours, thats more than one every 4 minutes, unbelievable.

Dratsabasti

Dear Dratsabasti

I am the Casualty Reduction Officer(C.R.O.) for A Div which covers N.E.Lincs. I have been asked to reply to your letter dated 22 Jan 2004. I / we are 100% behind your comments you make in your letter. I agree with your comments regarding the Highway Code, and over the last three years we have had a number of cyclist killed or seriously injured on our roads. I was not aware of the Portsmouth project. Did you know that 700 children aged between 5yrs - 15yrs are either killed or seriously injured on our roads on cycles every year.
As part of our Humberside Police strategy plan on Casualty Reduction we are committed to reducing all K.S I`s (killed & seriously injured). We have monthly initiatives which include such things as "seatbelts, mobile phones, drink / drugs driving, motor cyclists and pedal cyclist.
In November of last year I asked ALL officers to pay particular attention to pedal cyclist riding on a road during the hours of darkness without lights. Persons 16yrs upwards received a Fixed Penalty notices £30 fine. Juveniles aged between 10yr - 15yrs were invited to a CYCLESAFE Seminar. This was an alternative to prosecution.
It is fair to say that CPS treat cycling offences as low priority when it comes to prosecution.

On Saturday 20 December 2002 we had 79 people attend the CYCLESAFE Seminar at Grimsby Town Hall. They were given a talk on the dangers and the consequences of riding a cycle on a road during the hours of darkness without lights.
Each offender had to pay a fee of £12.00p
Upon completion of the seminar they were given a CYCLESAFE road safety pack which contained :- Set of lights and fixing brackets, batteries, numerous road safety books, pens, pencils etc. (value approx. £9)
The rest of the monies was spent on the venue.
There was no additional cost to the tax payer. This event was self funding.
As a result of our Grimsby initiative Humberside Police are to adopt this idea force wide. Feed back from parents who attended with their child was excellent.
R.O S.P.A are aware of my initiative and are to publish an article about CYCLESAFE in their April magazine.
We the Humberside Police will continue to make every effort in reducing road casualties on top of the priorities which include crime and general policing duties.
I hope this reply goes some way in answering your query on road safety initiatives in the Grimsby area.

PC C.R.O.

Dear PC C.R.O,
Many thanks for your very informative reply.
I am thankful to see you and your collegues are doing the best of an already difficult job.
Is there any chance you could publicise your excellent initiative in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, unless I missed it.
Is there a chance you could liaise with a local haulier and hold a Cyclesafe seminar at a haulage yard, to demonstrate the problems us Truck Drivers have in coping with cyclists who seem to have no concept of the problems truckers face, blindspots in the main. I am sure a cyclist would find it enlightening to sit in the driving seat of a truck and see for themselves the problems we have with the antics of some cyclists.
I find it sad to hear of a cyclist dissapearing under the wheels of a semi-trailer, because the cyclist couldn’t understand they couldn’t be seen, maybe a HGV driving school could help out. It could be possible to rescue a cycle from a scrapyard and run it over with a truck, a little graphic perhaps, but maybe a message would then get across.
Even as a youth, when I was fit and raced cycles, I could not fathom out that a motor vehicle was required to have lights fitted by law as part of the design, yet cycles didn’t.
once again Thank you for your reply,

PC C.R.O.

Dratsabasti,
Reference your query regarding the practical side relating to HGVs. Humberside Police have a policy involving pedal cycles and lorries we called it T.A.C.S. (Truck and Child Safety) We have been in all the schools with lorries and carried out demonstration with lorry drivers and road safety instructors, covering blind spots, left turns and the dangers of playing around parked lorries. Keep trying mate I'm sure there's something out there we havent tried, if so I am open to any thoughts.
Cheers PC C.R.O

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Straight off I cannot think of anything, but when I get a little time I will set my (limited) mind to it and see what I can come up with.

In the mean time YOU deserve to be congratulated for taking the time and effort to promote road safety, and for educating the outside wourld about the problems we face, and the dangers we present to other road users,… Efforts like yours could mean that one day we are not percieved as something just evolved from a single cell life form…
Good job mate!

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Rikki, I will be posting this same post on the PDA website. And Thank you, without this and the PDA website, I probably wouldn’t have bothered writing on the subject.

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I think your last idea would work really well. A mate of mine used to be a complete lunatic on his motorcycle until the Police pulled him in the Peak District and showed him the result of a collision of excessive speed, squashed motorcycle, bloodstains and evidence from both the motorcyclists (deceased) family and the victims family (deceased). Whenever I’ve ridden with hime since, he seems to restrain himself. When I asked why, he said it was the evidence from the victims familys and the graphic image of the bloodstained bike that did it. Shock tactics but they seem to work well.

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Drata we have a LOT of cycle tracks in Newark but people fail to use them WHY you may ask?, well each time you come to a junction on your bicycle you have to stop to check the traffic coming out of the junction it would have been a whole lot simpler for the rip off most expensive council TAXers in the U.K. ( rant over) to move the junctions back 3 feet in order to interest the cyclists.

BUT hey who are we to suggest the use of common sense?.

Any of you who use the B6325 ( i think thats the number) signposted Balderton in to Newark have a look you will see what i mean.

i quite often see fools with no lights on their way to work in the morning and i congratulate Humberside police on their task maybe they should contact their distant neighbours in Nottinghamshire and suggest that they take a similar approach.

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Serendipity. It was only yesterday morning that I looked, for the first time, at a video sent to me many months ago, produced by the RMC Group called “Think Ahead, Think for Them”, the theme of which is HGV’s and cyclists.

It should still be available by contacting RMC. Otherwise, I can download onto CD, but please be aware that I do not have distribution rights, so I would first have to re-run it and check who holds the copyright and request that anyone wanting a copy contact that organisation in the first instance.

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hat’s off to the humberside police for what they are doing.up here in scotland we have the police officers on the mountain bikes and i have seen them pull the young ones up on there bikes for no lights. they have been known to make them get off and push the bike home escorted of course.i have even had them using my trailer to pull them along to build up speed as soon as i stop to question them, its why the hell did you brake . duh :open_mouth:

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I agree that there a a lot of cyclists out there who are their own worst enemies and frankly if you’re riding without lights then you probably deserve everything you get (ok, so we all get caught out from time to time). Personally, bitter experience of idiot car drivers has taught me that unless you’re lit up like a christmas tree with enough reflective bands, tabs and whatever else they will always come out with the ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there’ line (the implication being that it’s your fault, not the moron behind the wheel who’s too buy fiddling with the radio or their mobile phone to avoid you). However, we’ve all got to share the road and just because we can get through heavy traffic quicker than you is no reason to despise us :slight_smile:
Oh and trucks are so rarely a problem that it’s barely an issue.

Should stress this is my personal view not CM’s.

Dom Perry

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:smiley: Leeds has gone cycle lane/track mad, with their little coloured but of tarmac, lines, own traffic signals, give way signs, “cyclists dismount NOW” signs etc. I bet it cost tens of thousands of quids to put all those up and the man hours involved and do the cyclists take a blind bit of notice of any of it? Do they hell.

To be quite frank, in my younger days I was a big cyclist and I wouldn’t take any notice of them either. Those areas you get at the front of a set of traffic lights for you to pull into if you want to turn right are a death-trap. Complete waste of space and money.

I could rant on about a lot of new road “improvements” too which have just made congestion problems worse but I’ll resist until a suitable topic comes up.

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Dom Perry:
I agree that there a a lot of cyclists out there who are their own worst enemies and frankly if you’re riding without lights then you probably deserve everything you get (ok, so we all get caught out from time to time). Personally, bitter experience of idiot car drivers has taught me that unless you’re lit up like a christmas tree with enough reflective bands, tabs and whatever else they will always come out with the ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there’ line (the implication being that it’s your fault, not the moron behind the wheel who’s too buy fiddling with the radio or their mobile phone to avoid you). However, we’ve all got to share the road and just because we can get through heavy traffic quicker than you is no reason to despise us :slight_smile:
[ Oh and trucks are so rarely a problem that it’s barely an issue. ]
Care to expand on that? I have in my 44 years ridden cycles,motorbikes,cars,vans and artics and the one thing I’ve found is they all have their share of sphincters at the helm,sometimes I’m one of them when I let my temper get the better of me or when I have made a mistake (cos we’re all human after all).Any enclosed vehicle has BLIND SPOTS.Cyclists are much harder to see because of their smaller profile and when in traffic they tend to get lost in the headlights from other vehicles in the hours of darkness even with the flashing lights.I almost collected a cyclist a couple of weeks ago,8 am rain tipping down I stopped at the give way line of a t junction,started to move off and there he was,the cyclist with NO LIGHTS,NO REFLECTIVE GEAR,SO WHO IS AT FAULT ?.Both of us I would say but surely commonsense dictates a person would want to improve their chances of being seen by other road users?In my expereience thats not the case with the majority of cyclists not taking apprpriate measures to protect themselves
Should stress this is my personal view not CM’s.

Dom Perry

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“Care to expand on that?”
OK - whilst I agree that there are (zb) in all walks of life (and I’m not absolving cyclists from this) I think the proportion of them behind the wheel of trucks is significantly lower than the number of them driving Mondeos/BMWs/Vectras on their way to important sales meetings. I’d also say that because truck driving is a profession and its entry standards pretty rigorous (and also transport firms are reluctant to employ accident-prone drivers) you get a higher standard of driving and, for the most part, HGV drivers are more than aware of the potentially damaging effects of a 44-tonne artic.
Yes there are cyclists who are their own worst enemies, but I think if you look at anyone that commutes seriously (ie 5+ miles as opposed to bimbling the mile and a half to the pub and back) they will have more lights than Blackpool illuminations. Personally I run two very bright flashing rear LEDs and a set of 12w/20w headlamps and I don’t have problems.
As for cycleways I’d agree that they aren’t always well thought out - sometimes they seem to be ther for no reason other than to spend a particular council budget…

language edit if it needs stars to get past the word censor it’s a good clue it’s not allowed mrs mix

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I read a cycling forum once and most of them thought that truck drivers would give more room to cyclists then the average car driver, but it only takes one or two to give us a bad name. They also seemed to agree that the people who design cycle paths have never ridden a bike. Surprised me I thought all road planners were lentil eating, bicycle riding, guardian reading, car and truck hating, members of friends of the earth. At least judging by most recent city redevelopments.

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We all hate cars. Particularly 4x4s taking little Tarquin and Petunia to school in the morning. It’s not a case of despising them as a mode of transport per se (I drive after all) it’s how they are used. I’m maybe 15 minutes slower biking the 15 miles to work than I am in the car cos of all the rush hour traffic. I opt out of that nonsense, it’s no fun.
Personally I can’t stand lentils though.

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Dom

Know what you mean, and if I lived and worked in London I’d be the same. :sunglasses:

However, I do like a couple of poppadums with a curry (or on their own for that matter) and what are they made from?..lentils :open_mouth:

Ah, well…another argument shot down :laughing: :laughing:

Jules

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RMC is very proactive on the subject of cyclists, I have recently had a camera,warning sign to cyclists on the nearside rear, and a “fish eye” mirror fitted to the cab which enables me to see right across the front of the cab.

RMC also have some other things currently on trial in London if you have it look at Commercial Motor 8th January edition page 62.

cheers
STEVE.

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yes i was driving behind a cement mixer and on his near side i saw this sign it said cyclist’s please don’t pass on this side.first time i’v saw this on a truck.make’s a change from how’s my driving call this number and grass on me :laughing: :laughing:

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Kit Kat, that sign makes a lot more sense than the hows my driving one, not much use on a motorway though. :smiley: :smiley:

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dratsabasti, don’t think they where designed for motorway :laughing: as for the how’s my driving they where only placed on the back off trucks due to the typical car driver that likes to complain about anything a truck driver does. why do you think the speed limit was reduced to 56mph,because someone thought that most accidents would be caused by truck drivers,so they say we will cut there speed and driving hours down.but we will let buses ,cars vans etc stay at 70+mph and let them drive as many hours as they want.i just wish we had someone on our side when they make these decisions.they have bus/ taxi lanes do you think we will see truck lanes i don’t think so, they have even got lanes for cyclists, nobody wants to do anything for the truck drivers. christ you can go into a place one week with no problems then the following week the local council have flung up a bollard or a sign saying 7.5 weight limit. or if you get into a tight place and it takes you 10 mins i bet you that after you stop and open the curtain someone will want out,always the same

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Kitkat, I know what you mean, I was in the centre of Buxton yesterday with a 45ft trailer delivering to a building centre, awful reverse up a side road, couldn’t drive up, low bridge ahead, total nightmare.
Isn’t it amazing, the road was pretty quiet, until, I wanted to manouvre and reverse up this tiny little road.
I really must find the fuse to the instrument that attracts everybody and their dog to screw up your little manouvre and life.
As soon as I started to move, the place turned into the nightmare from trafalger square, cars coming from all directions, and they must get past otherwise the world will end.
I am continually amazed at the stupidity of some car drivers.

I am trying the “www.starvethecameras.org.uk” idea, God, it’s boring and very soporific doing 40mph along roads that could easily support 50mph.

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And after all that I got fetched off by a pedestrian this morning. And what did he say as I got up off the road and started picking the grit out of my knees? Correct: “Sorry I didn’t see you”. It was all I could do not to punch him. Sorry, this is slightly off topic.