Spotted this on Facebook (along with the usual nonsense comments). I’d be interested in the forum’s thoughts given the driver is an unusual candidate.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/videos/news/cyclist-pulled-police-not-riding-cycle-superhighway

He was pulled over for riding dangerously, which he seems incapable of understanding, seemed abit of an arse to me.

Lucky to have been stopped by Michael Caine. 🙂

His move didn’t seem that bad to me, but from the camera angle it’s hard to know what’s going on to his side and how much of a shoulder check and indication he gave.

If it wasn’t much then I can see why he was pulled.

The officer needs one of these…

Also shouldn’t this be in the Bike Forum? Someone call a mod.

Don’t think either come out of that looking great!!

Typical twonk who just rides where he wants with no consideration for others. Weve got the best cycle paths between Dorking and Leatherhead, but you still get these weapons riding on the dual carrigeways….boils my piss! 👿

His move didn’t seem that bad to me,

That’s partly why I posted it. I couldn’t work out what the copper was objecting to so strongly, whilst managing to ignore both the drag-racing scooters at the lights and the blue van that pulled out into the path of the cyclists causing them all to brake hard. I wondered if it was just me being blind / the camera viewpoint.

The copper’s behaviour was deplorable though, clearly trying to intimidate him. Asking his name, then backpedalling when he realised the cyclist knew he didn’t have to tell him unless he was being detained. And was all the horn blasting the copper as well? Reckon I’d have been a bit “what’s your problem” in that situation too.

Pretty embarrassing for the copper all round, I reckon.

London is shite.

He can ride the road if he wants (isn’t it rec that you “should” if you’re doing over 15 mph or something ?)

he did seem to swing over as the copper was alongside him, though, which is shit riding

one-all

Also shouldn’t this be in the Bike Forum? Someone call a mod.

I considered it, but I don’t go in there very often. I should probably move it I suppose.

Weve got the best cycle paths between Dorking and Leatherhead, but you still get these weapons riding on the dual carrigeways….boils my piss!

Why? Would you object to someone driving in the second lane of a two-lane road when there’s a perfectly good first lane everyone should all be crammed into? It’s exactly the same situation.

Interesting one.

He wasn’t stopped for not using the cycle superhighway, he was stopped because the copper wanted to warn him that his riding was potentially dangerous.

You can’t tell whether he checked or signalled before he pulled out into the traffic, or whether it was safe to do so. You could infer from the coppers reaction that he hadn’t done so and shouldn’t have done so. He should certainly have heard the copper telling him to pull over before the blue lights went on, and that is always going to piss off a copper. The police car was there for long enough that I would have made sure my riding was squeaky clean, the same way I’m extra careful driving near a Police car.

He certainly seemed more intent on “making progress” than being careful and considerate to other cyclists and road users – he seemed to squeeze past the other cyclist as he went through the first set of lights.

Seems to me that an entitled attitude and a need for speed have had their noses put out by a copper offering a word of advice.* I wouldn’t have posted that for all to see, I’d not expect much sympathy.

*There’s a few car drivers who could do with the same treatment, just so long as we are all equal in the eyes of the law.

Watch the video again – the actual incident that starts this is earlier than you expect and it’s not really his failing to join the lane that the Police objects to.

This starts at 1.33 – another cyclist overtakes as the lights change and the Police gives them the horn. The cyclist who gets pulled over gives him a ‘Calm down mate’.

It wasn’t an appropriate use of the horn – people in cars forget how loud a car horn is. At c1m out of the car it’s damned unpleasant.

HelmetCam then doesn’t join the off road section but you can already hear the Police giving him verbal by then (which is probably why he misses the ‘on ramp’ to the off road cycleway which is pretty short and easy to do there if you’re worrying about someone too close on your right side)

The impatience here is the driver of that Police car – he’s the one who needed to leave some space for the junction to clear of cyclists before pulling off.

I think you’re on the money there.

He wasn’t stopped for not using the cycle superhighway, he was stopped because the copper wanted to warn him that his riding was potentially dangerous.

I think – that’s what the copper said , but in truth he’s stopped him because he objected to a cyclist getting in his way. Like so many other dicks in cars do.

simons_nicolai-uk +1

The first blast of the horn was unnecessary but aimed at the rider in front who did make a bit of a daft move.

Maybe the officer got confused and thought the guy he stopped was that first rider?

But if you seen someone do something daft in front of you then you don’t just blast your horn at them. I don’t know why the officer thought the cyclist needed to be aware of his presence unlessf “being aware” means “get out of my way”.

I can’t see from the video what the rider has done wrong there. He may have been impatient, but he didn’t appear to endanger himself or anyone else.

The cop’s attitude of “one of these days you’re going to…” really has no relevance to what’s taken place in that film. That the guy is heading for an accident at some unseen point in the future may well be his opinion, but I’m not sure that’s a sound basis for pulling him over and then trying to intimidate him by fetching his notebook. Fair play to the guy for politely standing his ground.

Don’t like the whole “you should be in the cycle lane” attitude, least of all from the police who should know better.

Hard to tell.

If the cyclist moved into his lane with little or no indication or shoulder check (as I think the video suggests) then I can perfectly understand the copper being a bit miffed at him appearing from nowhere on his nearside, in a position with limited visibility, when there are plenty of other things happening on the road to concentrate on.

Bearing in mind that copper may have scraped up one of more ex-cyclists in his time I can also understand him being a bit hostile to someone who doesn’t seem to take is warning seriously.

If the cyclist moved into his lane with little or no indication or shoulder check (as I think the video suggests)

I think in the YT comments he says he did shoulder check, and the reason his ‘helmet cam’ is actually on his bike is because all the shoulder checking he does makes it a bit unwatchable.

But then he would say that…

If he did one then it must have been a pretty quick glance.

Personally if I spotted a police car on my outside then I wouldn’t pull out just in front of it, well inside its stopping distance, and expect the driver to brake for me without some comment.

It seems to me that the rider took to the road because he needed Lane 3 to go straight on at the junction. Perfectly legal and legitimate.

I don’t know what he did that was dangerous.

I’m still shocked they were all stopping at red lights !

Can’t see what he did that warranted getting pulled over by the police, unless he pulled out without looking?

He’s in a hurry for sure, but it’s London rush hour and everyones in a hurry no matter what form of transport they are using.

It seems to me that the rider took to the road because he needed Lane 3 to go straight on at the junction.

He didn’t need to do that – the Superhighway went straight on as well.

I’m still shocked they were all stopping at red lights !

I used to ride that route 2-3 times a week before the new CSH went in. Contrary to popular belief/made-up nonsense, those red lights are very widely respected at that point and rarely jumped. You’d be jumping into pretty heavy traffic coming up from Camberwell…

The Policeman needs to spend some time riding in London before he goes around passing out advice – riding on the highway is entirely legal and there’s no requirement to be in the cycle lane… I watched the cycling bit but not the ‘having a chat’ bit and I couldn’t see what was wrong with the cyclist’s riding at all. Once he was out of the CSH he couldn’t get back in – there’s a raised kerb all the way along… he’d have had to stop dead in the moving traffic to lift his bike over, which is dangerous.

Police need to have a word with the SUV driver who pulled right out into moving traffic if they want to make the roads safer…

Well that was a bit shocking to be honest, calling a blue stripe with buses, cars and pedestrians crossing over it randomly a superhighway is a bit bollocks. I think superhighways should be high speed and uninterrupted, and capacity for loads of people to use it simultaneously like the Information Superhighway. That blue stripe is more Cycle Dialup, it’s not even Cycle Broadband.

Broess – if you had watched the chat bit you would have discovered that the policeman didn’t say he couldn’t use the road – the title is misleading.

I think superhighways should be high speed and uninterrupted, and capacity for loads of people to use it simultaneously

Give it time. This junction used to be a complete lottery, heart in mouth moment (taking the route this cyclist ended up taking on the road). It’s massively better now – you join that first section of off road cycleway and the adrenaline levels immediately start to fall. It’s not perfect but it’s lovely.

Look at Steinsky’s recent posts on Twitter – some of the new stuff is really pretty good. In time it will join up.

https://twitter.com/steinsky/status/722890259243995136/photo/1

https://twitter.com/steinsky/status/722884819101716480/photo/1

https://twitter.com/steinsky/status/722879150739079168/photo/1

Broess – if you had watched the chat bit you would have discovered that the policeman didn’t say he couldn’t use the road – the title is misleading.

This is STW – the opinion comes before the typing 🙂

I’m not going to watch it, the copper will be wrong, theyre all nobheads in my experience.

At 1:40 he basically cuts the corner, veering from inside to middle of the lane, with the cop car already alongside him. Obviously we don’t know if he shoulder-checked and signalled, but can’t imagine the copper would be that impressed by that manoeuvre, cycle lane or no cycle lane.

Then he gets arsey/dismissive with the officer, with predictable results.

At 1:40 he basically cuts the corner, veering from inside to middle of the lane, with the cop car already alongside him

Look at the path the car in front is taking (which is the path all motor vehicles normally take). The paint takes you very wide (sensibly) but there are no marked lanes and the blue isn’t bounded by white – it has no status at all. The only reason the Police car is so close to him a few seconds later is because the officer is already giving him hassle.

Meh London, who really cares?

That’s the problem with the blue area – it’s not really wide enough for two abreast unless cars give proper room to the RH rider as they should normally. But because it’s a ‘cycle lane’, the design suggests you can get two lanes of cars passing continuously with no interaction between cyclists and cars, which isn’t really the case.

I’m not sure the cop car was giving him hassle at that point – the rider moves out in the middle of ‘lane 1’ just after this still, with the police car, as you can see, already going for the overtake, and presumably squeezing him further out and/or making him brake.

It’s more about changing road position safely than using/not using the superhighway.

I’m a law abiding citizen, robo cop doesn’t come out of this very well, seems to have some beef with cyclists imho, the “superhighway” then seems to end a 100m further on, where a bus pulls over, so the cyclist has to move into the traffic anyway meh.

Weve got the best cycle paths between Dorking and Leatherhead

Are you sure about that?

In some places, particularly coming southwards, the surface is terrible, unless they have changed it in the last year.

Having watched the video in full now I’m afraid that copper handled it really badly – if he wasn’t a copper, he’d just have been some ill-informed driver with an opinion having a go at someone because he didn’t like what they did… he clearly understood nothing about the reality of riding in heavy traffic and that cyclists should ALWAYS be given room as there are always obstacles – potholes, paint, drain covers etc, and you shouldn’t pass so close to a cyclist that you may hit them if they need to swerve for any reason.

If Police are going to go around telling cyclists how to ride then they need to be given some training so they have some perspective and pick people up when they’re really riding badly, not stuff like this – needing to ride wide like that in London happens several times in a ride out of necessity (pedestrians walking in front of you being a big reason) and Police need to understand that before they start having words with cyclists…

Interesting, copper claims to have been “police driving” for 30 years but still seems to struggle with forward planning and anticipation which are the hallmarks of an advanced driver. Also, like so many drivers, perfectly capable of reaching the horn but unable to apply the brake.

Yes, the cyclists ride might not have been perfect, but clearly from the coppers attitude, he things all cyclists are clueless on the road.

Wonder when the last time was he had a similar conversation with a car driver for a similar manoeuvre.

I’m of the opinion that the lad was only pulled over because he told the copper to ‘calm down mate’. First thing he said when he got out of the car was ‘I’m not your mate’. He then proceeded to be rather condescending in tone (I’m assuming the cyclist was relatively young). Possible indication that the copper felt a bit stung, then looked for any reason to try and get back at the lad. Seemed a bit of a bullying arse to me. And if he’s so concerned about road safety, then he should look at his own behaviour; he didn’t bother to check behind his car, before going and opening the door to get his pocket book. That blue truck looked like it had to pull out into the oncoming lane to avoid him (and who as talking about ending up under a lorry? 😆 ). He got rather peeved when the cyclist challenged him on his driving. He’s clearly not ridden a bike in heavy traffic. Sounding a horn at someone when there isn’t immediate danger, is just stupid. And not allowing cyclists space and time is failing to drive according to the current road conditions.

What was achieved? Absolutely nothing. That ‘listen to me sonny’ (what his impending retirement has to do with anything I really do not know) speech was pointless; all it would have done is antagonise the cyclist. 30 years driving police cars and he hasn’t yet learned how to speak to members of the public. Probably a good thing he’s retiring.

I’m struggling to see what the cyclist did wrong there, but I’m not an experienced London cyclist.

Ok he came out of the cycle Lane when he could have slowed, but the copper was performing a dangerous over take, I suppose in mitigation the copper wouldn’t expect that… And that’s part of the issue with cycle lanes in this scenario, people expect bikes to stay in them.