The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Police officers have been out and about in Spalding today (Wednesday) cracking down on cyclists flouting laws.
On the spot fines have been handed out to 15 people seen on bicycles riding without lights or in pedestrian areas.
Officers came in at 6am this morning for the day of action and spent most of the day handing out the £50 fines.
Inspector Gareth Boxall of Spalding Police, said: “We’ve had a really productive day that saw 15 tickets handed out to those seen cycling without lights in the early morning and cycling in pedestrian areas later on.
“Some people might see these as petty issues but though they’re not the most serious, they’re important for two reasons.
“We don’t want to those cycling without lights to be killed. What can be more important than saving people’s lives which is effectively what we’re doing.
“Cycling on pavements can make people feel intimidated and we’ve had a lot of requests to deal with it.
“We’ve also not just gone out and decided we’re going to issue tickets. We’ve been doing a great deal educating people of the laws of cycling, even going into local factories and teaching workers on road safety.
“We hope people will talk about this operation and it will act as a deterrent.
“The money raised from the tickets does not go into police coffers. It goes towards all sorts of road safety initiatives.”
Two of the offices on duty and handing out fines were PC Karl Cinavas and PCSO Dave Walker.
PCSO Walker, said: “We’ve had people congratulating us on what we’re doing. It is a major concern for the general public.”
PC Cinavas: “From those we’ve spoken to, we’ve had quite a neutral reaction. Obviously they’ve not been happy for the ticket but they’ve been accepting of it. One or two were disgruntled.”
Inspector Boxall says similar operations will take place in Spalding.
“We constantly have to prioritise so we can’t do this every week. We didn’t have any extra staff on, the offices came in early out of the goodness of their hearts to tackle problems that a number of the community want us to tackle.
“But we will definitely do it again.”
