West Mercia Police's local policing team, Malvern Cops announced this weekend that they are introducing some plain clothes Operation Close Pass cycle patrols.

They said they're hoping that publicising this activity will make "drivers think more carefully when passing any cyclist and not just uniformed police officers", adding that the patrolling cops will be armed with cameras to record the road users.

I'm sure the response the team got is unfortunately not the one they were hoping for.

Ranging from classic whataboutery and people still believing road tax is a thing, to the MGIF mentality and then just, plain hostility, it's a full house folks.

Now I know we have reported on motorists playing the anti-cycling bingo many-a-times, but it's surprising and disappointing to see the cops receiving the sort of backlash that would make anyone believe that all the work to encourage cycling never really
happened and it's back to the Thatcherite 90s once again.

Thankfully, it wasn't all bad.

Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Cox applauded the Malvern Cops, saying that it was "an excellent move… Initiatives such as this can really help awareness and positively influence driving behaviours".

Meanwhile several other users also tagged their local police force to take inspiration for such initiatives and wondered if they would see officers cycling in plain clothes any time soon, with one person even pointing out how "easy" this initiative be to
replicate.

Well, easy enough that cyclists do it everyday!

Mike van Erp, or more popularly known as CyclingMikey, meanwhile was also educating ignorant drivers about how cyclists are supposed to ride.

And finally, Malvern Cops confirmed that they will be apprehending cyclists all the same if they notice someone breaking any laws.

"If we see cyclists not adhering to the rules of the road then they will be dealt with in the same way as motorists," they wrote. "We are not adverse to giving a cyclist a ticket for jumping a red light and the officer in this picture has issued two such
tickets to cyclists."

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-7-august-2023-303045

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swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:

West Mercia Police's local policing team, Malvern Cops announced this
weekend that they are introducing some plain clothes Operation Close Pass cycle patrols.

They said they're hoping that publicising this activity will make
"drivers think more carefully when passing any cyclist and not just
uniformed police officers", adding that the patrolling cops will be armed with cameras to record the road users.

I'm sure the response the team got is unfortunately not the one they were hoping for.

Ranging from classic whataboutery and people still believing road tax is
a thing, to the MGIF mentality and then just, plain hostility, it's a full house folks.

That sounds very much like a description of any of the Comments sections to road.cc articles by the psycholists that seem to occupy that space.

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-7-august-2023-303045

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Spike

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Has the police considered actually solving real crimes ... including shoplifting...

Because shoplifting causes 1700+ deaths and 25,000 injuries a year, obviously...

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This kind of highlights the issue that cyclists face with drivers. They have a really weird false equivolance for cyclists and cars.

Bikes shouldn't be on the road because they don't move fast enough and hold up cars.
Bikes should pay "road tax" and have number plates because cars do
Cyclists should be held to exactly the same standards as cars for any sort of infraction because they they are on the same roads.

On one hand they accept that bikes are completely different to cars and then then in the same sentence equate the two exactly. They think that bikes breaking the rules is just as dangerous as a car doing it. They ignore the constant rule breaking of cars
and instead fixate on the small number of cyclists who do it despite it being massively on sided towards cars and completely ignore the vulnerability of cyclists.

As I keep banging on about, drivers should be forced to cycle on our roads periodically. Any speed or safety awareness course should have a mandatory cycling part where you have to go out on the road with an instructor and feel what its like to be close
passed by dickheads like themselves.

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Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:

West Mercia Police's local policing team, Malvern Cops announced this
weekend that they are introducing some plain clothes Operation Close Pass cycle patrols.

They said they're hoping that publicising this activity will make
"drivers think more carefully when passing any cyclist and not just
uniformed police officers", adding that the patrolling cops will be armed
with cameras to record the road users.

I'm sure the response the team got is unfortunately not the one they were hoping for.

Ranging from classic whataboutery and people still believing road tax is
a thing, to the MGIF mentality and then just, plain hostility, it's a full house folks.

That sounds very much like a description of any of the Comments sections to road.cc articles by the psycholists that seem to occupy that space.

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-7-august-2023-303045

Looks like I was correct…

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Spike

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Has the police considered actually solving real crimes ... including shoplifting...

Because shoplifting causes 1700+ deaths and 25,000 injuries a year, obviously...

Stopping drivers who drive poorly has an additional benefit, as it often uncovers other criminal activity. It is a fact that criminals tend on average to commit more traffic offences than is average for the general population.

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On 07/08/2023 07:08 pm, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

Has the police considered actually solving real crimes ... including shoplifting...

Because shoplifting causes 1700+ deaths and 25,000 injuries a year, obviously...

Stopping drivers who drive poorly has an additional benefit, as it often uncovers other criminal activity. It is a fact that criminals tend on average to commit more traffic offences than is average for the general population.

Possibly true.

We know that cyclists, in particular, are quite reckless about the
safety of any motor vehicles they drive (eg, driving across a continent*
in a car without functioning windscreen wipers).

[* The continent in question not being renowned for its dry weather.]

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On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 7:08:12 PM UTC+1, swldx...@gmail.com wrote:

Has the police considered actually solving real crimes ... including shoplifting...

Because shoplifting causes 1700+ deaths and 25,000 injuries a year, obviously...
Stopping drivers who drive poorly has an additional benefit, as it often uncovers other criminal activity. It is a fact that criminals tend on average to commit more traffic offences than is average for the general population.

100% of fly tippers, in fact.
=================================
Cheshire West and Chester Council continues to target fly-tipping in the borough and has achieved another successful prosecution.

A man from Liverpool has had his van confiscated, fined £150 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £490 at Chester Magistrates Court after saying he lent his van to a friend who then went on to use it to fly tip waste on Frodsham Marshes.

At Chester Magistrates Court, Sean Fagan, 29 from Whitney Road, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to an offence of fly tipping under section 33(5) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The prosecutor explained to the court that as the registered owner of the vehicle, Sean Fagan was to be treated as causing the fly tipping.

An eyewitness saw the van on Frodsham Marshes being used by three men to fly tip waste and reported the incident to the police. The police arrived soon afterwards and seized the van. The fly-tippers had abandoned the van and run away from the scene.

The matter was then investigated by Cheshire West and Chester Regulatory Services, who brought the prosecution.

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swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:

Has the police considered actually solving real crimes ... including shoplifting...

Because shoplifting causes 1700+ deaths and 25,000 injuries a year, obviously...

Stopping drivers who drive poorly has an additional benefit, as it often uncovers other criminal activity. It is a fact that criminals tend on
average to commit more traffic offences than is average for the general population.

Honestly, is this an example of the sheer paucity of bicyclist thinking?

Apples and Oranges again…

“…the general population…” has a very high proportion of non-drivers, so on
balance any issues from sub-groups of drivers will have a higher proportion
of whatever it is, than the said general population. 🙄

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Spike

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