Ah well, it's that time of the year again, the mandatory police force
getting something so wrong about cyclists that we have no option left but to cover it.
This time, it's Devon and Cornwall Roads Policing Team, who wrote last evening: "Cyclists, please be mindful of your speeds and just how this
will effect you in the event of a collision. This group today on Dartmoor observed travelling at near 40mph on a 30mph restricted road. All stopped
and offered appropriate words of advice".
There's not much I can say about this post, other than reminding the
roads policing team that the speed limit doesn't legally apply to
cyclists, because there's no, once again, legal requirement for a
speedometer on an piece of equipment not powered by a motor.
In fact, Rule 124 of the Highway Code sets limits for various vehicles,
which MUST be complied with, and in which bicycles are not included.
Further, Rule 125 also says that "inappropriate speeds are also
intimidating, deterring people from walking, cycling or riding horses",
and drivers should reduce their speed when "sharing the road with pedestrians, particularly children, older adults or disabled people,
cyclists and horse riders, horse drawn vehicles and motorcyclists".
Hmm, 22 months on, do we need another survey to tell us how many drivers
are still unaware of the Highway Code?
And just as you'd expect, the tweet was the perfect hunting ground for the pitchfork-weilding anti-cycling brigade, lambasting not only the cyclists
in the video — who at least in my opinion seem to be well-experienced and riding safely, and were most likely going down a descent — but all cyclists, bringing up discussions like license plates, speedometers, and harsher police action towards "speed-limit disobeying" cyclists.
Mike van Erp, the London cyclist and cycling safety advocate, better
known by his alter-ego Cycling Mikey, caught whiff of this police post
and replied to several tweets, saying that the cyclists weren't breaking
the law and that "that’s probably quite reasonable when a bicycle weighs maybe 10kg and an average car 1.5-2 tonnes".
More cyclists jumped in to criticise the police's tweet, remarking that
this was doing nothing but "stoking more anti-cycling sentiments" and
"giving motorists even more encouragement to treat anyone on a bicycle as
a second class citizen".
Some quick kinetic energy calculations might be of help here...
Another person pointed out that the police, while themselves going past
the speed limit in their cars, failed to use the blue lights and the two-tone siren.
Incidentally, two weeks ago, Devon and Cornwall Roads Policing Team were
also clamping down on speeding drivers, catching a driver speeding at
61mph in a 30mph zone, just a few feet away from a child cyclist, with
the police confirming that a prosecution will take place.
The team also said that it identifying 280 other instances of motorists speeding or using mobile phones in one hour.
Adrian Leisk, Head of Road Safety at Devon & Cornwall Police, said: "Our South Devon team identifying, yet again, that speeding drivers in Torbay
are not expecting to be held to account."
https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-4-september-2023-303635#live-blog-item-49199
QUOTE: I don't object to police voicing their opinions about safety etc.
and giving advice - most of the time that's good policing. My objection
would be to police ignoring speeding drivers that do pose significant
danger and instead just focussing on cyclists that pose far less danger. Unfortunately, most police have contracted car-brain and so consider that cyclists are a threat and ignore motorists casually breaking traffic laws. ENDS
eburtthebike | 4578 posts | 5 hours ago
3 likes
Not only do the police have no idea about speed limits and how they don't apply to cyclists, their grasp of English isn't too good either:
Cyclists, please be mindful of your speeds and just how this will effect/affect you in the event of a collision.
FTFT
Shermo wrote:
The police car is keeping up with the bikes so must be speeding?
Don't believe police can/should exceed the speed limit without their lights on?
I believe that emergency vehicles are exempt from speed restrictions, but they should be using lights when doing so, though arguably 39mph in a 30
zone is about typical for motorists.
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