Skip to main content

Hunting Cyclists for Fun & Profit

It's something we read regularly in the Danish press. The police had out traffic fines in order to make their statistics look good and to reach certain goals set for each police district. The article, above, is from November, 2011, but there are articles about it every year. The photo in the article is police handing out fines to bicycle users in Copenhagen. Cyclists are often the easiest target. You park your police car or police bicycle (illegally) on a busy street and starting writing fines.

It is often near the end of the year that police - if it looks like they're lagging behind in reaching the goal - will hit the streets to hand out of flurry of fines.

The article highlights the irony that in many police districts they become so focused on traffic fines that they use less time on crime.

Jørgen Jensen, a policeman from the western suburbs, is quoted in the article as saying, "Based on the bare figures, we go after certain areas in order to reach the targets."

Tom Steffensen, a policeman from Northern Sjælland, says, "If we want to prevent break-ins in suburban neighbourhoods but, at the same time, have to hand out traffic fines, then neither job will get done properly. Officers often say to citizens 'I'm sorry, but I have to write you a ticket so we can reach our targets.'"

At the beginning of each year, the 12 police chiefs sign a 'contract' with the national police chief about which goals must be reached in various areas over the course of the year. The police chiefs get a bonus at the end of the year for their district if the goals are reached.

This is a timely post because the police have announced - yes, they always announce it - that next week they'll be going after cyclists in Copenhagen, as the Danish paper Politiken wrote yesterday.

So. I found this app from Trapster.com. It's an app for motorists where they can warn each other about speed traps or other bothersome hindrances.

I've downloaded it to my smartphone and I was thinking it would be a great way for the bicycle users of Copenhagen to warn each about these police traps for cyclists next week - and every time. This applies to any cyclists anywhere - it would be brilliant in the Netherlands, as well.

I've emailed Trapster to ask them to include bicycle pictograms for their 'trapmap' - but haven't heard back yet. "Damn cyclists", they're probably thinking. But hey. The app works well and we could use it as is. If you are cycling in your city and see police pulling over cyclists, you go onto the app and report the location. It 'pushes' out to other users who have their app activated on their journey and warns them.

We'll also be using this hashtag for Danish cyclist traps: #cykelrazzia. Oh dear... should I start a Facebook group, too?




Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...
Read more

The Race for Lithium for Electric Cars and Bicycles

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia. Photo: Ezequiel Cabrera/Wikipedia The coming boom in batteries to electric cars and Lazy Bikes (electric-assist bicycles) means a boom in batteries with which to run them. A new race for natural resources has begun. Enter Lithium, the world's lightest metal. For 150 years it's been nickel and lead that have been used in batteries but the advent of lithium technology has allowed for a revolution. Longer battery life, lighter batteries in our laptaps and mobile phones and iPods. Lithium weighs 1/20th of what nickel and lead do. Lithium is also used in anti-depressive medicine, ceramics and nuclear power. With all this talk of electric cars and bicycles, the demand for lithium is on the verge of exploding. Lithium is the new oil. Enter Boliva. This developing country sits on at least half of the world's supply of lithium, most of it in underground salt layers beneath the world's largest salt flats in Salar de Uyuni , in south-west Boliva. Betwee...
Read more

Bikes Beat Metro in Copenhagen

Originally published on April 4, 2014 Like anyone interested in city life, we like to keep our eyes on the street life of our city. Currently however, the City of Copenhagen is planning to take some away from the street, by forcing people underground, with the 'M3 Cityringen' expansion of the Metro. Instead of investing in the reestablishment of our tram network - so rudely removed by the ironically-named mayor Urban Hansen in the 1970s - Copenhagen seems keen to get people off the street. This doesn’t come cheap: €3 billion gets you an additional 17 stations added to the existing Metro network. Some of the cost can be explained by the fact that  It is not easy to build a Metro in Copenhagen, a city that is on the whole scarcely above sea level, and with a dense urban fabric too.  It's due for completion in 2018, but that's later than the initial estimate and with the date still some way off who knows whether it will actually be ready by then - just ask the ...
Read more