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Swedish police fail to catch speeding cyclists

Swedish police set about clocking the speed of cyclists in central Stockholm this week, but as every single biker was over the speed limit the officers only managed to apprehend and fine 15 of them.

Swedish police fail to catch speeding cyclists

The Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper reported on Thursday that Stockholm residents have increasingly got in touch with local law enforcers to do something about cyclists who disrespect speeding limits.

On Wednesday evening, Stockholm police set up a control station at Götgatsbackan, a semi-pedestrianized shopping street with one officer telling the newspaper that three people had been killed in bicycle accidents in the capital in the past year.

“People call us either because they’ve been hit by cyclists or because they are scared they will be,” the officer who did not want to be named told SvD.

He said that while the team did spot checks on cyclists’ speed for only one hour, they stopped and fined some 15 of them. The street has a low speed limit of 7 kilometres an hour for bikes, but the officer said that every single cyclist whose speed they measured had been going faster than that – posing the problem of apprehending them in time before they scooted off.

“In the last year, we’ve changed our focus to make sure we patrol the areas where we get most reports of accidents,” the officer said.

He also added that Stockholm’s cyclists, often dubbed aggressive by pedestrians, have made some would-be cyclists too scared of getting on their own bikes.

TT/The Local/at

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