Met Police's cycle safety move welcomed

The Met stopped 70 lorries and issued 15 penalties in the operation on Monday

The move by the Met's traffic officers to make road safety their number one priority will be welcomed.

By next week there'll be 2,500 officers on the street policing all road users.

Interestingly, there was a smaller scale operation on Monday at Vauxhall where in just four hours, the officers stopped 70 lorries and issued 15 penalties for offences such as the vehicles not being fit for the road.

They also stopped 100 cyclists, who were given safety advice for things like cutting corners and wearing headphones.

It shows the scale of the problem and it also shifts the debate away from infrastructure onto the road users.

This is a short term measure but I think London Mayor Boris Johnson had to be seen to be doing something.

The real issue will still be that there are record numbers of cyclists in the capital but the safe infrastructure is a long way off.

This intervention could save lives in the short-term but when the police go, what then?

And the calls for a daytime HGV ban are increasing in volume and frequency.