You are reading a single comment by @tynan and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@tynan
Yep, this is my approach towards the police when cycling, unless it is comprehensively obvious to the police that I have seen them (direct eye contact would qualify) I will go on my way and not stop or turn around - they are hardly going to call in the SWAT team and helicopters for someone who might have gone through a red light.
If a policeman on a bicycle radioed in to a busy overworked metropolitan police control centre with "I have just seen a cyclist go through a red light - can we get a couple of cars down here to search the area and track him down" - he would be laughed at.
Of course if I knew that I would be dealt with in a fair and reasonable way I would be inclined to stop at the first instance, but previous experience with the police tells me to let them find some other bloke to take out the day's frustrations on.
I think the French bloke in the OP was a little stupid in more than one way, he should have simply cycled off (without breaking the law) ignoring the policeman and forgot about the whole thing, quite why, after fleeing from a (cycling/mobile) policeman, you would start riding on the pavement puzzles me - and when the policeman caught up, that really isn't the time to break for freedom, before that point you could have feigned ignorance but when you have an officer grabbing at you the game's over.