Pulled Over By The Police

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
Flinders
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Flinders »

BearOnWheels wrote:Two points:-

When pulled over like this (or indeed anytime you are stopped by the police), always ask under what piece of legislation you are being stopped or what offence you are being charged with. If they can't name it or can't tell you, you are perfectly within your rights to say 'well, unless there was anything else, I'm off then'. You are a citizen going about your lawful business; (alright the terrorism legislation is different, but I don't think that is in this league)

Complain: in writing to the Police force. Check the website and follow the requirements down to the letter. As much detail as you can, weather, road conditions, what you were wearing (or not).Its really important that this sort of bullying ( and thats what it is) is stopped and the officers concerned given 'words of advice'. Abuse of legal powers is a serious matter.

I wonder is it worth CTC getting some advice from Liberty on this sort of thing? A set of standard advice would be very useful!


Perhaps they could come up with an advice sheet/card we could carry. Photographers have had to do this, in order to deal with police officers who are, ahem, exceeding their powers.
Flinders
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Flinders »

Sorry, made a multiple post for some reason....not sure how I managed it.
Flinders
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Flinders »

[quote="thirdcrank"

If it's frequent, then we are in the bizarre situation that against a background of a collapse in traffic enforcement, time is being found to devote to something which is hardly a policing priority.

[/quote]

Happens a lot in failing organisations- things start to fall apart, the powers that be can't sort out the big problems, so they focus on the small ones, and/or the easiest people to bully rather than the real offenders. Schools where the kids run amock and big kids are violent but where the staff ignore the big problems and pick on little, quiet, well-behaved kids for wearing the wrong colour socks is the prime example.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
I thought of "focus" before reading above post.

Its all about focusing on what is important or lack of focus on what is definately important, you would think that child care or protection of children / vunerable people in the community is important......but obvoiusly today and yesterday it is and was not :?

The media BBC SW reported on suposed increase in cycling deaths and asked "what could be done" so they look at their tablets and read some comments from the public media twits (tweets) one of which was cyclist running red lights.............. :?

If this has some bearing on the increase in cyclist deaths then lets hear it but it appears to my cynical mind that they are just picking up on what is easy and close to hand instead of confirmable facts............................
The CTC rep they filmed seemed weak and more polititian than authoritable / clear to understand why he was even there :?

Mass reporting of one or even several individuals / groups is not neccesarily an acurate view of facts / majority views / opinions.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by thirdcrank »

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=90510

I've started another tread. Not very scientific but I'd like to get an idea of the extent of this.
SteveHunter
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by SteveHunter »

This is brilliant. Police stopped this cyclist in London to inform him he shouldn't be cycling on the pavement. He was in fact on a cycle path.

It's amusing but it does suggest there is something wrong with the design of the cycle path of it wasn't obvious to a pedestrian that's what it was.

http://youtu.be/YHMLMKE1tOk
Mark1978
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Mark1978 »

SteveHunter wrote:This is brilliant. Police stopped this cyclist in London to inform him he shouldn't be cycling on the pavement. He was in fact on a cycle path.


Yes but the officer accepted his mistake with good humour, as did the cyclist.
Bicycler
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Bicycler »

Indeed, no problem there. He made a mistake and acknowledged it.

The only time I have been stopped was for "riding the wrong way down a one way street". I was exiting the street at the end when I was told I shouldn't be doing that. It was an easy mistake for him to make because there is a no entry sign at the other end of the street so it is effectively one way for through traffic. I pointed to the lack of one way signs and rather than admit a simple mistake he wished to argue the toss "there is no need for signs here, there is a no entry sign" "you must have ignored the no entry sign". I didn't and he was just making assumptions. In the end he said he'd let it go this time but if he saw me ignoring the no entry sign again he'd have to issue a fine :roll: Needless to say I wasn't worried enough to feel the need to change my behaviour but it does illustrate how people can dig their heels in rather than admit an error
Flinders
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Flinders »

Bicycler wrote:Indeed, no problem there. He made a mistake and acknowledged it.

The only time I have been stopped was for "riding the wrong way down a one way street". I was exiting the street at the end when I was told I shouldn't be doing that. It was an easy mistake for him to make because there is a no entry sign at the other end of the street so it is effectively one way for through traffic. I pointed to the lack of one way signs and rather than admit a simple mistake he wished to argue the toss "there is no need for signs here, there is a no entry sign" "you must have ignored the no entry sign". I didn't and he was just making assumptions. In the end he said he'd let it go this time but if he saw me ignoring the no entry sign again he'd have to issue a fine :roll: Needless to say I wasn't worried enough to feel the need to change my behaviour but it does illustrate how people can dig their heels in rather than admit an error


It can be difficult. There's a path here through a park. It's even part of the NCN. But it isn't signed once you're in the park, nor identified as a cycle path in any way, even where other paths cross it (with no indications of who should give way), so some pedestrians get aggressive about cyclists using it at all.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
Bicycler wrote:Indeed, no problem there. He made a mistake and acknowledged it.

The only time I have been stopped was for "riding the wrong way down a one way street". I was exiting the street at the end when I was told I shouldn't be doing that. It was an easy mistake for him to make because there is a no entry sign at the other end of the street so it is effectively one way for through traffic. I pointed to the lack of one way signs and rather than admit a simple mistake he wished to argue the toss "there is no need for signs here, there is a no entry sign" "you must have ignored the no entry sign". I didn't and he was just making assumptions. In the end he said he'd let it go this time but if he saw me ignoring the no entry sign again he'd have to issue a fine :roll: Needless to say I wasn't worried enough to feel the need to change my behaviour but it does illustrate how people can dig their heels in rather than admit an error

If I saw a car going the wrong way down a one way street I would probably flag them down even if I was on my bike.
Its not that a cyclist would ever endanger another road user going the wrong way, and today are anyone really bothered about cyclist on pavements / using a shortcut illegally....its only jobs worth and car driver cyclist haters.

You endanger yourself every time you put jour leg over bike anyway.

This over the top have a go at cyclist doing something borderline and not exactely dangerous to other road / pavement users takes me back to my youth nearly forty years ago when you only had to ride a motor bike down the road for a bobby on foot to rush into the street and stop you then let you go, just because M/cycles were then always noisey and I happen just to open the throttle above 5K ........going on 10500 rpm :lol:
Last edited by NATURAL ANKLING on 17 Sep 2014, 10:14pm, edited 1 time in total.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill
Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
Bicycler
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Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Bicycler »

Flinders wrote:It can be difficult. There's a path here through a park. It's even part of the NCN. But it isn't signed once you're in the park, nor identified as a cycle path in any way, even where other paths cross it (with no indications of who should give way), so some pedestrians get aggressive about cyclists using it at all.


Agreed, and that is why I very rarely decide to challenge others about use of paths. People who don't do a particular activity are usually unaware of the exact rules and restrictions of doing that activity.

In my PC's case though, the lack of one way signs should have ended his assertion of me being on a one way street. Unless of course he knew the street to be wrongly signed, in which case he should have been reporting the signage
Flinders
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Joined: 10 Mar 2009, 6:47pm

Re: Pulled Over By The Police

Post by Flinders »

Bicycler wrote:
Flinders wrote:It can be difficult. There's a path here through a park. It's even part of the NCN. But it isn't signed once you're in the park, nor identified as a cycle path in any way, even where other paths cross it (with no indications of who should give way), so some pedestrians get aggressive about cyclists using it at all.


Agreed, and that is why I very rarely decide to challenge others about use of paths. People who don't do a particular activity are usually unaware of the exact rules and restrictions of doing that activity.

In my PC's case though, the lack of one way signs should have ended his assertion of me being on a one way street. Unless of course he knew the street to be wrongly signed, in which case he should have been reporting the signage


I didn't mean to undermine your post- in my opinion, the PC ought to have stopped you politely in the first place (in case you had made a genui8ne error yourself), and, when you pointed out the facts of the case, should have checked and apologised. He was behaving like a thug 'because he could'. I wish I could believe it was an isolated case of that, but I'm losing confidence in the police- sad for me, as my uncle used to be a copper, and, I think, a good one, and the contact I had with the police when a family member was killed in a RTA was very positive. But the policing situation seems to me to be deteriorating fast.
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