A police ticket quota for cyclists won't stop the deaths on London's streets

This week, if you live in London and cycled to work, you might have noticed the sudden increase in hi-viz around junctions. Not more cyclists alas, but police officers, stopping cyclists to dispense "safety advice" and crucially, issue fixed-penalty notices of £50 to cyclists deemed to have broken traffic rules.

The Metropolitan police inspector Colin Davies emailed staff last week: "All, can you please cascade this onto your troops. Officers have four months to do 40 cycle tickets. Ten per month, 2.5 a week. Most officers are nearing or have even achieved their other targets. This will give them a renewed focus for a while."

Many Guardian commenters reported passing clusters of officers on their commutes. Benitez09 said:

"Quite a lot of police this morning outside Stockwell station and at the Oval- although hardly any on the much more dangerous Elephant and Castle roundabout. Yes, such a visible police presence gives a certain amount of reassurance and am sure it must incentivise drivers (and cyclists) to behave better. Mind you, I can't imagine that maintaining this type of police presence is very sustainable financially. Wouldn't it be cheaper just to improve the cycling infrastructure?"

NifkinFZ6 was far less impressed on cycle superhighway eight (CS8), however:

"On CS8 this morning, shortly before a heavily policed junction (can't remember which, not my usual route into work) two police vans were parked along the nearside kerb on top of the blue paint. A rather nervous looking female ahead of me was therefore forced, rather tentatively, to move into the path of the heavy traffic. I'm not necessarily having a pop at the police, but it does highlight the farcical nature of the cycle super highways and this current knee jerk reaction to the recent fatalities. It's a shame so many deaths had to occur before the blantantly obvious has been acknowledged; that the CS routes were never going to work."

After a sudden spike in cycling fatalities in London with six cycling deaths in a under a fortnight, there have been growing calls for politicians to take action to make London roads safer. This seems to be the only tangible response or action we've seen so far, and many feel it smacks of scapegoating. London mayor, Boris Johnson, flatly refused to accept that the number of HGVs in London – and the often terrifying road infrastructure – is contributing to these avoidable deaths, focusing instead on a bizarre suggestion that headphones being banned might be the best way to improve cycling safety.

We know that the more cyclists there are on the road, the safer conditions are for cyclists. Issuing fines to people who have nudged in front of stop lines on junctions, or crossed a pavement briefly when trying to find a less dangerous route doesn't make cyclists safer, it just feeds a growing resentment between cyclists, and police and other authorities.

The blackspots for cycling accidents and fatalities are well known - ask any cyclist how they feel cycling over Elephant & Castle, Bow roundabout, Vauxhall Cross, or turning at Blackfriars Bridge or King's Cross and you'll see the weary dread on their face. The increase in HGVs and lorries on London's narrow roads have been responsible for several deaths, but politicians appear to blanche when campaigners suggest banning HGVs during rush hour. In response to increasingly dangerous conditions, protesters are staging a "die-in" outside Transport for London's headquarters on Friday.

Asking Met traffic officers to ticket 10 cyclists a month is a half-hearted box-ticking exercise that at best acts as a sticking plaster to some very deep-seated structural issues with London's roads, and at worst, encourages officers to ticket for minor offences and technicalities, then abandon the exercise until the next quota needs to be filled.

Having an increased police presence encouraging both motorists and cyclists to obey the highway code is to be applauded. But a far better use of resources would be to look at what makes our roads so dangerous, and when motorists cause cycling injuries, properly investigate them.