Critical Mass reports

Police charge cyclists at Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass
29.04.2007

Last night the police com­mit­ted a sur­pris­ing u‑turn in their approach to deal­ing with Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass. The Mass has pre­vi­ous­ly been accom­pa­nied by cycle offi­cers “to ensure the safe­ty of the cyclists” how­ev­er there has been no police pres­ence since last Sep­tem­ber. This changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the April Crit­i­cal Mass.

Last night the police com­mit­ted a sur­pris­ing u‑turn in their approach to deal­ing with Glas­gow Crit­i­cal Mass. The Mass has pre­vi­ous­ly been accom­pa­nied by cycle offi­cers “to ensure the safe­ty of the cyclists” how­ev­er there has been no police pres­ence since last Sep­tem­ber. This changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly with the April Crit­i­cal Mass; the 50–70 cyclists were tailed by a police van for the major­i­ty of the ride with the police stop­ping some of the rid­ers at the front of the mass and warn­ing them not to con­tin­ue else they may face charges. In the midst of the cycle run, while the Mass duti­ful­ly wait­ed at a red light, the two offi­cers (A303 and A628) made their way to the front of the mass and select­ed three cyclists, appar­ent­ly at ran­dom. It should be not­ed that these three were not the cyclists spo­ken to by the police ear­li­er. These arbi­trar­i­ly cho­sen cyclists have been charged with “Cycling with­out due con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­er road users” under sec­tion 29 of the 1988 Road Traf­fic Act (exact word­ing: If a per­son rides a cycle on a road with­out due care and atten­tion, or with­out rea­son­able con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­er per­sons using the road, he is guilty of an offence.In this sec­tion “road” includes a bri­dle­way). They were informed that a report will be sub­mit­ted to the Procu­ra­tor Fis­cal for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion. Watch this space.

http://www.glasgowcriticalmass.org.uk

Crit­i­cal Mass Lon­don 13th Anniver­sary ride.
16MB film — mp4
The very well attend­ed Mass got off to a good start, despite a spelling mis­take on the kind­ly donat­ed t‑shirts. There was the usu­al large police pres­ence with its usu­al intim­i­dat­ing video­ing of rid­ers. Pity they can’t take their own med­i­cine and try to con­ceal their faces.

The police returned to their pre­vi­ous tac­tic of block­ing the front of the ride, thus adding to traf­fic con­ges­tion. At the entrance to Par­lia­ment Square the front of the ride was blocked for sev­er­al traf­fic light cycles. Final­ly, in frus­tra­tion, and after some boo­ing at the block­ers, rid­ers decide to go around on the pave­ment to enter the Square. At some point the ride split into two but man­aged to join up again in the Strand. Video­ing stopped at the couri­ers’ pub, while the ride con­tin­ued on into the night head­ing East­wards.

All in all very enjoy­able and mer­ry ride.