Er, forgive me.
A bicycle in the workplace is a piece of machinery with the potential to cause injury. Under H&S laws an employer has a lawful duty to ensure that their staff and contractors are trained in the safe use if that machinery, as the Royal Mail found out to the tune of £600,000 a few years back. Full stop. Period. No excuses. No exceptions.
Fail to provide that training the employer can be fined. Someone dies and people can be, and have been, imprisoned. It is work equipment, and that brings obligations.
Bike ability is totally inadequate for police cycling where you may be riding off road, searching for misers, perhaps even having to use the bike as a defensive weapon. There are techniques for crowd control using cycles, and even for mounted firearms officers, though there isn't a demand for the latter in the UK. The training must cover every intended or likely use of that item of dangerous machinery.
Indeed, as a professional my personal view is that Bikeability is not sufficient training as it largely omits the required pre ride safety checks, and gives zero instruction on who is authorised to repair them etc.
Indeed, as work machinery there must be a maintenance regime, with everything properly documented, all work carried out by professionals with a qualification recognised by the HSE.
If youre an employer who requires staff to ride bicycles and you think the syllabus in Bikeability is suitable to meet all the lawful requirements of the HSE then you'll sooner or later get a serious reality check.
And I am a copper, and most coppers refer to them as "farces". It's a very common vernacular in both the Farces I've worked on, and both the Farces my wife worked in. Been serving the Queen, first in the Army, then in the Dibble, for just coming up on 27 years and plan to do so for a whole yet I guess.
