First Close Pass operation takes pace in the City Centre

Yesterday (Wednesday 14 June 2023) Greater Manchester Police officers took to the streets of the City Centre as Operation Close Pass got underway for the first time since its relaunch last month.

Officers from GMP’s Road Policing Unit teamed up with Traffic PSCOs and headed to Chester Road off Deansgate, as work continues to make roads safer for all vehicle users throughout the City-region.

An education mat was laid out on the road which gave car drivers a visual diagram of how much space they should be leaving pedal-cyclists when overtaking them.

The PCSOs took to the roads to identify those drivers who fail to overtake them within the Highway Code’s recommended safe passing distance of 1.5 metres.

Once identified, a nearby police patrol will be called-in to intercept the driver and offer them on the spot education on how to safely overtake cyclists.

Two drivers were stopped and received education about the Close Pass scheme and given tips and pointers on how to overtake cyclists safely in the future.

Some motorists were also handed Traffic Offence Reports for various offences and officer on motorcycles stopped several vehicles to advise them about passing cars closely.

Sergeant Bradley Ormesher from the Roads Policing Unit said: “This is the first of two operations that we are running in the City Centre and there will be other operations taking place throughout the whole of Greater Manchester in the coming months.

“We had a lot of questions from the public who were passing about the scheme, with our officers informing and educating them in the hope that they pass the information to their friends and family.

“There has been some significant road traffic collision between vehicles and cyclists in recent weeks, which highlights the need for us to spread the message as far as we can to hopefully bring those incidents down and make Greater Manchester’s roads a safer place.”