Cycle Super Highways or Parking for Lazy Police Officers?

This week marks Road Safety Week. It is sadly rather aptly timed this year coming after 2 week when 6 cyclists were killed on London’s roads and a number of other cyclists killed around the country.

Road Safety Week is an initiative launched by BRAKE who state on their website

Road Safety Week is a UK-wide event organised annually by Brake, the road safety charity. It’s a community involvement event that involves thousands of schools, employers, emergency services and community groups each year. Brake also uses the Week to launch a national and regional media campaign to promote road safety awareness and safer road use, tied in with that year’s theme.

This week also marked the start of a big operation at various locations across London to promote road safety. Their website has the following self congratulating article

Road safety operation across London

19 November 2013

Over 70 lorries were stopped and checked by MPS Traffic Command officers on Vauxhall Bridge Road, Whitechapel Road and Albert Embankment in a road safety operation today (18 November).

In addition around 100 cyclists were stopped and given safety advice by officers from the MPS Safer Transport Command, where there were concerns about their behaviour – for instance cutting corners and wearing headphones while riding.

“Our message is do everything within your power to be safe on the roads.”

The operation began at 0700hrs and concluded at around 1100hrs. It saw 15 fixed penalty notices totalling £2,300 being issued to lorry drivers for 15 offences, including driving more hours than they are legally permitted to without break and having vehicles that are not fit for the roads. In one instance a lorry stopped on Vauxhall Bridge Road was found to have a dangerously over-inflated tyre that left it unfit to continue its journey.

Cars were also pulled over where necessary and drivers issued with fixed penalty notices for offences such as crossing advanced stop lines illegally, having tyres not fit for the road and having defective brakes.

Cyclists who were stopped were advised of a range of safety measures they can take, such as wearing helmets and high visibility jackets. Bikes must be fitted with white front and red rear lights, and with a red rear reflector.

On Vauxhall Bridge Road, many cyclists were stopped as they attempted to cut across the pavement to enter the busy flow of traffic rather than a designated cycle entry point at traffic lights.

This morning’s operation is part of the MPS’s ongoing efforts to help make all road users safer on the roads, and falls on the first day of national Road Safety Week.

Chief Superintendent Glyn Jones, of the MPS Traffic Command, said: “We held this operation in busy areas where lots of cyclists and lorries share the roads during rush hour. This is a combination which has the potential to result in collisions if road users don’t take adequate care. Our objective today was to raise people’s awareness of the safety measures and to check that lorries and their drivers were fit to be on the roads.

“While today’s operation focussed on cyclists and lorry drivers, our overall message goes to pedestrians and other drivers too. Our message is do everything within your power to be safe on the roads.

“We are not looking to blame one particular road user; we are here to urge everyone on the road to take the very best of care for the sake of themselves and others.”

My route too and from work includes a section from Stratford to Aldgate which is known as Cycle Super Highway 2.  The section between Stratford and Bow was only launched 2 or so weeks ago by the Mayor of London. This includes segregated sections to keep cyclists safe from the traffic. (I will come back to this and the police approach to it later).

Now this morning, the weather was cold and damp, but surprisingly the traffic was flowing freely. The non segregated section of Cycle Super Highway between Bow and Aldgate was free of obstructions. At various points along the route their were police officers, mainly at traffic lights mainly for red light jumping cyclists. They would radio ahead to other officers to get them to stop said offenders.

I should say that I support this campaign. The behaviour of some people on bikes is appalling and they not only endanger themselves, but also other road users.

So, given this week is about Road Safety and the Metropolitan Police are running this campaign to promote cyclists safety, I would expect that if a lazy selfish motorist parked his vehicle on a Red Route (no stopping allowed) which is also part of the cycle superhighway.

Well seemingly although all are equal, some are more equal than others and can get away with this. (The footage shows a forward facing view from head cam – right half of screen, and rear facing footage – left half of screen).

The officer was part of the team aiming to improve road safety. I’m not sure how parking illegally and blocking the cycle superhighway forcing cyclists out into the middle of the traffic is going to improve road safety. Remember this is the same police force who are stopping cyclists and telling them to wear hi viz clothing ( no legal requirement to wear this by the way), to improve their road safety. A bigger improvement to road safety would be to stop forcing cyclists to swerve out of the cycle super highway into the path of motorised traffic.

When I got to work today, I was telling people about this stupid/ selfish act by a police officer and thought I might be able to make a blog post about it.

As I rode home tonight, it got even worse. After Bow, when riding on the segregated bit of the cycle superhighway, I saw the following in a gap in the segregated bit to allow pedestrians to cross at the Greenway junction. (Apologise for the poor quality footage, but it was dark.)

Yes, that’s right  not only is the police car parked on the cycle superhighway, it is also parked within the zigzag lines of the pelican crossing. You will also note the road itself is exceptionally busy as this is at rush hour.

The selfish and illegal parking by the police officer forces cyclists to swerve around the car into the path of the traffic. Thus having to perform a dangerous manoeuvre to get round this awful piece of car abandoning.

Interestingly as I was taking the above pictures, the 2 police officers wandered back up the street, in no seeming hurry to move tier dangerously parked car. They approached me and tried to justify their illegal parking by saying they were investigating a call about people misbehaving. No seeming emergency, and there was no sign of anything happening.

The reality of the matter is the officers could not be bothered to park in a safe place a little further away and walk to the area. They were justifying their dangerous parking on the basis it made their job easier. Strangely if you justify your dangerous parking when questioned by the police, by saying it makes your tasks more convenient, the police don’t accept that as a good excuse.

Given :

1. the cycle superhighway extension opened 2 weeks ago and
2. is designed to promote cycling by improving cyclist safety by keeping cyclists and traffic separated
3. this is Road Safety Week
4. the Metropolitan Police are running a road safety campaign this week

You may question what sort of lesson this is giving to the public. If members of the public took the view that the blue paint on the road is an appropriate place to park, then that would not be surprising.

Metropolitan Police Road Safety Campaign? They’re having a laugh at the expense of the public.

For the benefit of any police officers who read this, the blue paint on the road denotes it is a cycle superhighway, it is not a blue line to indicate police parking spaces.