Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

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Pete Owens
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Joined: 7 Jul 2008, 12:52am

Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

Post by Pete Owens »

https://www.cyclestreets.net/location/99848/

Car crashes into a cyclist on a sunny summer afternoon and the Hinkley Police start wittering about working lights and bright clothes {FFE - family-friendly edit }!
Pete Owens
Posts: 2442
Joined: 7 Jul 2008, 12:52am

Re: Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

Post by Pete Owens »

That CUK auto-censorship moderating bot acts b****y quickly!
thelawnet
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Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 12:56am

Re: Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

Post by thelawnet »

This is a (since deleted) tweet. The photo appears to show the car colliding with the cyclist, not the other way round. It is possible that the cyclist emerged from the side road (where there is a give-way line).

The police have made a number of follow ups where they have made various statements that seem calculated to blame the cyclist

"The teenage cyclist was taken to the University Hospital Coventry by air ambulance. "
"The road wasn’t closed and no-one was arrested..."

(bold mine)

https://twitter.com/PoliceHinckley/stat ... 2825555968
https://twitter.com/PoliceHinckley/stat ... 2553212930

Some users have commented that in fact not all road users are equal or have the same degree of responsibility due to the different risks posed by respective vehicles.

It is not clear why generic and irrelevant advice towards cyclists was offered.
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

Post by pwa »

Am I missing something, because to me it is impossible to decipher what happened based on that image. Somehow the cyclist and the windscreen collided and, thankfully, no great harm done. I can think of scenarios where the driver could be primarily to blame, or at least one where the cyclist might be more to blame, and nothing in that image tells me which occurred.

The advice to cyclists at the end of the comments lacks context and is therefore perplexing. The way in which it is connected to the incident is not spelled out. Is it a feature of social media that "press releases" now go out without passing around the office for editing and proof reading?
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The utility cyclist
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Joined: 22 Aug 2016, 12:28pm
Location: The first garden city

Re: Police victim blaming on Cyclestreets

Post by The utility cyclist »

Why is anyone surprised, this is the bog standard police trope these days because the nasty people who choose to use a bike to go about their business are simply asking for it if they don't wear plastic hats, hi-vis and now apparently don't have a light on during the day-time :twisted:

It stinks, and stinks badly, Hertfordshire police have the same 'advice' on their cycle safety pages re helmets/hi vis and even go so far as to say it's against the law not to have a rear red reflector. Whilst this is strictly speaking true it's also an example of an outmoded law that as well as rear lights were made for the benefit of speeding/innatentive motorists and as per the twitter release is now going even further with the police being judge jury and executioner on the incident and blaming the person on the bike every which way they can.
Bunch of arses :twisted:
Why do we allow this bias/discrimination to continue, how is it even lawful to be so discriminatory?
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