Met pull out of Bikesafe

[Martyn H]

I don't know about the MET Bikesafe, but when I did mine in Cambridgeshire years ago the officers volunteered and did it in their own time.

The Met were virtually full time as BikeSafe officers plus specific taskings.

 

[Martyn H]

for those residing in London, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Would you fancy doing an observed ride as far as Slough then being told you are turning around and riding back to base as you have run out of time!

Instead, head to Cheltenham and make a weekend of it, enjoying the ride there through the Cotswolds. Take the observed ride in lovely countryside in the Cotswolds or Forest of Dean.

But as most of the Met attendees live & ride in London, arguably the training is more beneficial in their day to day environment.

 

[Martyn H]

I am sorry to hear about the Met, which were a well run unit doing, IMHO, a very good job, & I got to know most of their team over the years until my retirement.
The BikeSafe scheme was always run on a force by force basis, & very much relied on supportive management. It only took one Supt. to change roles & a previously enthusiastic
Force would just drop it; or, of course the opposite, & this hypothetical Force would want to join in.
I was lucky in Glos. in that for the 35 years that I ran it I had that support BUT after Traffic was decimated in the mid-1990's in Glos. it was just me & one or two others.
The classroom input was easy as I could, & did, manage that on my own, but getting the riders for the on-road element went from easy to impossible.
We no longer had a Traffic Division, with two motorcycle sergeants & 16 constables to provide those riders, & indeed had no full-time motorcyclists in the Force.
So the alternative was to reply on (selected) IAM or RoSPA observers, or offer just the classroom element, which I thought was unsatisfactory.
So I chose to carry it on, for another 10 years or so, with the help that the non-police Observers provided as the alternative to ending it altogether.
I would finally add that when we were using police riders some were more 'on-board' than others...........