Police get 93-page guide to cycling

[marinyork]

I'm afraid you're starting to look like a nominee for an apple and orange Nobel Vikeonabike. Cycling and driving are not the same thing and an argument offering up that they are the same is a poor one. It's about weighing up different factors, yes training is needed but not too much as to stop anyone cycling and I'm afraid you really do have to bear in mind how it looks to the public.

I've never said that I am against training, what I said still stands, the police really are responsible for when they ride/drive. This was mostly to counter the annoying habit you have of defending the police as having special rights, special behaviours and being a special class of citizen that get special patronage that they alone can do whatever they want to anybody and be above the law and behave however they like. You're the same as anybody else, you kill someone on a bike, it's your fault.

 

[Norm]

I don't see why it shouldn't be out in the press. The idea will rise or fall on its own merits.

Are you naive enough to think that is how it works? To think that public opinion cannot be swayed by the spin that newspapers put on stories? To even believe what you read in the press?

I've only been involved in a few news items but I have seen that the papers report only the story which sells the most papers, ignoring the truth.

I'm afraid you really do have to bear in mind how it looks to the public.

Again, that is only one opinion, formed out of media hype.

 

[summerdays]

It's a bike for crying out loud. Training is good up to a point but you seem to be trying to weigh the thing down through a weight of bureaucracy and its own self importance until it collapses. What then, no PCSOs or Police Officers on bicycles?

Ultimately it's the fault of the police officer if that happened (whatever that may be). It's not the fault of the force having inadequate training (a classic way of deflecting culpability) or magic fairies or anything else. If someone cannot take that responsibility they aren't fit to be a police officer, nevermind ride a bike.

Many jobs have course that may at first seem pointless because it is obvious, but often once I've done the training its usually been informative, and given me a new perspective on something.

I'm all for a cycling manual for the police - it should be in addition to Cyclecraft, giving the police the techniques of how to use the bike/deal with the bike in their duties. Think of how many cyclists we complain about their position on the road etc. The police are (hopefully) setting an example to other cyclists and motorists about how to cycle on the road.

I know that some of the PCSO's around here are Bikeability trained but I haven't got any idea of whether they all undergo training or just some.

 

[dellzeqq]

the Met training is quite testing - it involves riding down flights of stairs, an accomplishment overlooked by John in his otherwise excellent book.

And that's the point isn't it. 'Here's the bike, get on it, follow me, watch me do this, now you do it, watch out for that, look over your shoulder, sorry it weighs approximately three tonnes'...

 

[Cab]

I am fully in favour of the document, I am using it to try and get my constabulary to instigate cycle training and properly equip cyclists. After all, surly a bike being ridden by a police officer is an "Emergency Vehicle" and should be marked accordingly. It also then makes sense that if officers are to "respond" to incidents then they should be afforded the same level of training as police drivers and motorcyclists?

I was talking to one of our local PCSOs a couple of months ago about the heap of crap she was riding. In my view she's an excellent PCSO, she's bright, enthusiastic, sensible, and she commands respect from the locals. Yet the bike she's allocated seems to be a clunker abandoned on the streets of Cambridge. Nasty, cheap, mountain bike.

I entirely agree that good training and adequate equipment should be seen as being essential. But I wonder how much specific advice is needed for police cyclists over and above whats already incorporated in Cyclecraft?

 

[John the Monkey]

the Met training is quite testing - it involves riding down flights of stairs, an accomplishment overlooked by John in his otherwise excellent book.

Which reminds me, I'm fairly sure that C+ did a feature on the training given to cycling paramedics. There seemed, to my eye, to be a fair bit to it, and they (hopefully) don't have the additional complication of chasing malefactors as a possible part of the job.

 

[Vikeonabike]

Take a look a t PSC website, in particular this video.
http://www.publicsafetycycling.org.uk/psctv.html
Give an idea of some of the training that Emergency services cyclists take part in!

Taysides Video
http://www.saddlerscottage.net/policesystems/cycle/index.html

Interview with Matt Landridge in City Cycling Mag
http://www.citycycling.co.uk/issue5/issue5page6.html

 

[Vikeonabike]

That doesn't make sense, if you were about to give chase, why do the flying dismount, you'd have to get back on again!

As it was you try and do a flying dismount, fall off and smash yourself in or you come to a serene stop jump off and collar the villain. How much time were you actually going to save by your flying dismount, 0.7 of a second maybe? Instead, you injure yourself and your town loses a copper for several weeks while you get better. If it was a scenario in a Police training test which would you pick?

Any chance the CCTV will be on Youtube

Maggot
I tried to grab the little scrote whilst still riding. If I had grabed him with my right hand it would have been the back brake I would have pulled. Therefore I would have managed a serene stop. It's all just experience.
CCTV might be on Youtube at somepoint in the future

 

[Cab]

Maggot
I tried to grab the little scrote whilst still riding. If I had grabed him with my right hand it would have been the back brake I would have pulled. Therefore I would have managed a serene stop. It's all just experience.
CCTV might be on Youtube at somepoint in the future

Excellent, I'll look foward to seeing that footage

 

[Mac66]

Public perception is largely formed by "red top" newspapers in my opinion. These exist solely to generate sales, rather than providing any sort of reasonably informed opinion.

I have not read the Sun article but the "outrage" seems to revolve around a unit within the police spending a couple of grand to show the police how to ride a bike.

Now I am betting nearly all the Sun readers are thinking to themslelves "I can ride a bike so how can this cost money?" No doubt they can ride a bike the half mile to the pub and back at 5 mph on a nice sunny day. Stick them on a bike at a 3 lane entrance to a roundabout and they would $h*t themselves, but they remain blissfully ignorant of the realities of riding and the many skills it requires to keep yourself and others safe.

The police should be applauded for any effort they make to try and provide instruction/training to their officers. My only potential critisism(sp?) is whether the unit that provided the manual had any cyclists amongst its membership? I would have thought that they should have started with Cyclecraft and supplemented it with the additional requirements for cycle mounted police. Perhaps this would have been more costly though?

It is a shame that ACPO did not have the spine to challenge the story as it was portrayed.

I have taken a broad brush to readers of the Sun and no doubt there are Sun readers among us, so please be assured that I am not Sunnist. All purveyors of news have an agenda and my news is received via the ever unbiased internet!

 

[Auntie Helen]

Sorry to bring this up but someone sent me this video today - a good example of why cycle training might be useful:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghIkrZn5gqI