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Essex police logoEssex police stop cyclists for riding without lights, high-vis or helmets
Essex police have stopped over 120 cyclists in a seasonal operation aimed at improving cycle safety in a number of bike accident blackspots around the county.
Since Operation Bluenose started on January 13, 120 cyclists have been stopped. Police have been advising those without lights to get some, but have also been suggesting riders use high-visibility clothing and helmets.
It’s not the first time this winter that Essex police have been trying to get that message across. In November last year, their ‘Let’s Look Out For Each Other’ initiative enlisted Movistar professional rider Alex Dowsett in a campaign aimed at encouraging drivers and cyclists to share the road.
In the launch press release for that campaign, drivers were advised to wait patiently and pass safely, while cyclists were advised not to ride two-abreast on narrow roads; never ride three-abreast; wear helmets; and not jump red lights.
Dowsett was once knocked off his bike by a van which overtook too close to him with a couple of passengers laughing and shouting abuse at him. On another occasion he ran into the back of a car that overtook him then jammed on the brakes to turn left immediately in front of him.
Alex’s mum, Jan Dowsett, has also been a casualty in a cycle-car collision. She took up cycling after being inspired by her son’s race and time trial victories but while out on her bike she was knocked over by a car towing a caravan that overtook her but pulled in too early. She fell off and shattered her shoulder. She has not been able to ride a bike since that collision.
An incident with a cyclist while driving his car that convinced Alex that both riders and drivers needed to change their ways.
He said: “I was driving through London when a cyclist tried to get through an impossible gap between my car and the kerb. I jammed my brakes on and the rider got through, but he turned and shouted abuse at me.
“Cycling is my life, I know that cyclists can be vulnerable and when driving I always give riders plenty of room. But when that rider made an impossible manoeuvre it made me realise that it’s not just drivers who need to be more safety conscious.”
Department for Transport statistics indicate that in the majority of car-bike collisions, the cyclist is not at fault. A 2009 report from the department said that riders jumping red lights, wearing dark clothing or riding at night without lights are to blame for less than 7% of crashes that result in a cyclist being seriously injured.
Nevertheless, the aim of Operation Bluenose, according to the police, is to find riders at risk and urge them to use more safety equipment such as lights, helmets and high visibility clothing. Officers are also using social media to ask cyclists to identify which areas and cycle routes should be investigated.
Essex police say that January, February and March are the months when road collisions involving cyclists increase, mainly during dark evenings when people cycle home from school, college or work.
In the corresponding period in 2013 there was a 50 per cent increase in recorded casualties in the Basildon District alone. Other districts such as Chelmsford and Colchester have also seen an increase, but to a lesser extent.
Sgt Graham Freeman, who is running the operation, said: “The majority of [cyclists] who had no lights or reflective clothing assured us that they would have some as quickly as possible. Only one or two people had to be reminded that there would be a £50 fine if they failed to comply and were stopped and warned for a second time.
“About 50 per cent had no lights and were given verbal warnings. About 50 per cent had no reflective clothing and 75 per cent had no cycle helmet.
“The approach was initially to stop and educate cyclists including those riding without lights, on footpaths, in pedestrian-only areas or riding the wrong way down one-way streets. We will also be handing out the ‘Let’s Look Out For Each Other’ literature when talking with people.
“We will also be showing riders a map which outlines where the cycle road collision have happened in their areas. Our stop checks will be at same of these collision sites so showing a map will have much more of an impact than just giving words of advice.”
“Obviously if further action is deemed necessary to drive home the need for improved safety, we will issue fixed penalty tickets.”
The operation will continue until the end of March.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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41 comments
The problem here is that Essex police are notorious for failing to deal with dangerous driving around cyclists and pedestrians, even when presented with clear evidence (video etc). Then having a "crackdown" on cyclists appears to reflect a problem with Police attitude rather than a genuine desire to improve safety.
Coming from a cyclist, some of the comments are so over dramatic, ridiculous or people just get wound up over the slightest matter.
People are getting wound up over continuous victim-blaming. In the last 3 months we've had Boris Johnson respond to 6 deaths in 2 weeks by complaining about headphones, Operation Safeway fining a much greater proportion of cyclists while ignoring drivers on phones, the Met stopping cyclists without high vis and helmets, and now Essex Police doing the same.
This is why people are feeling harassed. The police should focus on the cause of the actual danger, not those put into danger while acting perfectly legally.
Which is all illegal, next piece of bullshit?
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ranty ranty rant rant, no legal reason for pulling over non hi vis/helmets, rant rant....
Erm please re-read the article and tell us all where people were stopped for the clothing issues...
Reading it without the ranty glasses on it seems that when people were pulled over for lighting infractions they were given advice on the clothing too, sensible policing imo.
All of the quotes from the Essex police say "reflective", not hi-vis clothing, which is fair enough, and more in keeping with the research road.cc publicised from an Australian university, just a few months ago. The only mention of hi-vis seems to be in the copy written by road.cc, not in the quotes from the police themselves.
The helmet argument will go on and on, but fair enough to get annoyed that they are stopping people for something that isn't legal. That is just draconian.
No lights - stupid and dangerous. To more than just yourself.
"eg the helmet gets you 50 - 100 joules of impact protection. Get hit by a smart car doing just 22mph (10 m/s) and the impact is of a magnitude of 40,000 joules."
Just thought I'd point out that this is faulty physics.
Impact is based on inertia and is relative, so both objects' mass must be considered.
While 40,000 joules sounds like atom-smashing force compared to 50 joules, think what happens when a car runs into a feather. It floats away unharmed and is NOT pulverized into its constituent molecules.
Similarly, while the force of the car might be 40,000 joules, the mass of your head is *significantly* less than the mass of a car. If the relative speed is 22km/hr, and your 40,000 joules represents a 2000lb car, but your head weighs 10lbs, what you're actually saying is that the head impact is 200 joules. In order for the 40,000 joules to apply, your head would have to be able to completely stop the motion of the car. That would be a factor if your head was caught between the bumpers of two cars or something, but in most cases, your head will just bounce off, encountering only enough energy to modify the movement of your head.
Which sounds like a 22km/hr collision would cause heads to explode like watermelons all over the place *EVEN WITH HELMETS* and is clearly totally ridiculous.
There are so many other factors to consider such as how directly the force is applied to your head and if you had already started to change your movement by the time your head made impact. Plus the fact that the helmet's function is to cushion and that means to increase the amount of time required to affect the movement of the head.
A force of 200 joules might be enough to scramble a person's head, but if it resulted in a change of motion taking place over a period of time 4 times as long, it might be just fine.
It's true that helmets are not helpful if they are impacted with enough force to blow them into confetti, but they will still reduce the potential for damage even in those circumstances.
I've seen people have collisions that shredded their helmets but went otherwise unscathed. And speeds were significantly higher than 22 km/h.
@eschelar
You raise a very valid objection to the post you quote, but your own analysis is equally simplistic!
For starters, if you don't completely stop the movement of the car (as you likely won't unless you are obese enough to merit a Daily Mail hate-piece all of your own) then that energy will be transferred to your kinetic energy, and either the rapid acceleration will in itself do something very nasty (particularly if its exclusively your head that experiences it) or you'll then hit something stationary and absorb that energy in the end anyway.
And then there's the issue of the brain bouncing around inside the skull, even if the helmet reduces the impact damage to that skull.
Obviously the physics of helmets and impacts is very complicated but the original comment doesn't seem to be any worse a simplification than yours.
Anyway, I wear mine very much in the spirit of a lucky rabbit's foot. I remain convinced that the one time I set off without it will be the time something bad happens!
never read so much psuedo scientific voodoo in my life.
the reason why helmets spit and break apart is because they haven't worked not because they have. Just rto recap on how helmets are supposed to work. The styrofoam is designed to compress and therefore absorb some of the energy of the impact. That works up to around 100 joules on the very best brand new helmets. (the British, Euro and US standard is 50).
when a helmet is impacted by substantially more force than this it will fail. The strofoam does not compress properly and absorb impact it compresses much faster than 1/1000th of a second transferring the impact and spitting the styrofoam. This has happened to me crashing whilst mountainbiking.
Anyone that says they were protected by a helmet that spit or cracked doesn't understand how the helmet is supposed to work and therefore doesn't realise that their helmet just failed to protect their head and was overwhelmed.
And there some other junk in there as well. Your head my way 10lbs but it's connected to your body so doesn't bounce away independently.
Physics books are available from all good bookshops.
Did they also stop all black and dark-colored cars and tell the owners to go by some reflective stickers?
How about cars not fitted with 5-point racing harnesses, bucket seats and roll cages, all of which have been clearly shown to increase safety during collisions?
If they are not doing these two things then why pick on cyclists alone for not wearing hi-vis clothing or a helmet?
All cars are fitted with reflectors, the same as motorbikes and the same is also a legal requirement for bicycles.
Too much bullshit on this for my liking, why do we always get in a flap when somebody tries to help us be seen or safe, why do we effectively say.. F**k-off and make the car drivers better whenever advice is given, just because car drivers are the worse offenders doesn't diminish the advice.
I see more bicycles without lights and more bicycles running red lights than cars, and there are more cars on the road than bikes, so who is worse... there... I can't wait to be shot down by all the experts on this forum... but a bike does less damage than a car... yea yea yea
Stuff doesn't have to be legal requirement to be good advice you know, sure you may not agree with the advice and fair enough, don't take it, however all this emotional response doesn't do the cycling community any good.
But its not 'advice', its stopping and bothering people in a public place going about their lawful business. That's not 'giving advice' its harassment.
And bicycles sans lights after dark is a separate issue to pestering people about helmets and high-viz. The former is already a legal reason for stopping someone (and therefore is fair enough), the latter two are not.
And if you see more bicycles running red lights than cars I suggest that's because you have the same selective blindness that affects most motorists who comment on that topic. I see far more cars crossing stop lines when the lights are red than I do cyclists. The trouble is people are so habituated to seeing cars do it that they just don't even notice any more (hint - its usually down to failed 'amber gambling' or ASL creeping)
Do Essex Police carry out similar campaigns aimed at motorists whoa re driving illegal cars e.g. tyres not meeting required standards, lights not working properly, drivers not wearing seatbelts? What is the legal basis for the police to stop people who may not be doing anything illegal? The police, in my understanding, do not have the power to stop just anyone they fancy however 'noble' the cause.
So basically if they are stopping cyclists during daylight, then as they are not commiting a moving traffic offence, they actually have no grounds whatever for stopping them. This means it is straight forward harassment?
Spot on, you have no obligation to stop for them.
Fines for no lights at night? Yes.
Compulsory hi-vis clothing? Yes, but only along with hi-vis cars.
Compulsory helmets? Yes, it would save the lives of many car passengers, but full face helmets would effect visibility for drivers so there might need to be a compromise there. Statistical evidence shows that there would also be benefits if pedestrians wore helmets.
By the way what now is the status of the Home Office minister's advice, given when on the spot fines were introduced, that police should use discretion when people cycled on pavements if they feared for their own safety due to motor vehicle traffic?
Let them wear what they want its natural selection.
Join here and give me a hand getting rid of twat cyclist and twat car drivers.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/408115345981295/
Ah yes, Alex and his hi viz Movistar kit . . . .
Hmm, "Don't ride two-abreast on narrow roads", as far as I am aware we shouldn't ride side by side on major (trunk) roads, but lanes...
I know that we always come off worse in a collision, but this whole 'incentive' reeks of "Why do you want to be in the motorist's way".
Just saying....
I get fed up EVERY DAY with cyclist who don't have lights on. Yes, I cycle 9 miles each way every day to work, I don't drive often. These idiots just don't realise that you cannot see them.
It should be compulsory to knock off cyclists with no lights as well.
A spot fine should be just that as well. Hand over the bike if you don't have lights and the Police keep it until you can collect WITH SOME LIGHTS. If you don't collect then the bike is sold or crushed.
Lights cost less than a tenner a pair from Wilkinsons and there is no excuse not to have them fitted.
Do you really that cyclists who ride without lights should be knocked off? Isn't that a bit aggressive?
What do you think should be the penalty for drivers who break Highway Code paragraph 126?
"Stopping Distances. Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. "
Fret, I was hoping for a reply.
If you wouldn't say it at a dinner party, don't type it when anonymous.
lights between sunset and dawn maybe, but high viz and helmets... get stuffed...
Good move essex, real good move
Seriously though, how much money do you think they're spending on this? A better idea might be perhaps to fund officers to actually investigate the hundreds of car on cyclist incidents. Or maybe they could pay for a refresher course in "using discretion" for PCSOs
I believe this happens quite a lot and it doesn't really help cyclists.
in the majority of car-bike collisions, the cyclist is not at fault... Nevertheless, the aim of Operation Bluenose, according to the police, is to find riders
I like how these stories these days have an aside halfway through, a pause to agree we all know the approach is wrong, before continuing with the story. It saves me getting wound up and is therefore very much appreciated!
I'm not a racist, but...
It must be great to live in Essex where the crime and anti-social driving rates are so low the police have to dream up imaginary laws about clothing and helmets so they have something to do.
In the dark with no lights? Fair cop. Stopped during the daylight for any of lights/clothing/helmet is harassment pure and simple.
If Essex pold are serious about improving road safety, they would stand on corners target motorists using phones, speeding and amber-gambling/RLJ.
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