... I hope the police officers are okay, not to mention the otherwise unmentioned Polo driver who this complete scum bag crashed into - he put other people's lives at risk - innocent people's lives. Why have these officers been suspended from driving? It's not their fault this complete tosser failed to stop and decided to drive recklessly. It was him that made the decision to continue driving and the police quite rightly followed him - if he'd have obeyed the law and stopped when told to this "tragedy" (hah...) would not have happened.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for this man at all. Again, I hope the police officers and the Polo driver are okay.

The police do their jobs yet there's always a God damned problem with it, and the PC "oh, don't be so mean to people" brigade will do anything to take a cheap shot at them. Where is the support in the media? Where is the support from the public?

Why have eight officers been banned from driving?

Again, we don't know the whole story and there you go off on one.

Whether he did it on purpose or not, at least show a little compassion for his widow, kids and grandchildren.

No smoke without fire...
Bias does work both ways.

It's not smoke, it's steam. Kneejerk reactions and the like.

Something similar happened around here and the same thing happened with the local police doubters pointing fingers, turns out he was a drug dealer and was off his face at the time. "Tragedy". Hahaha. I know I'm a hard faced bastard but I have no time for people who obviously have something to hide. As far as I'm concerned, even if the police had rammed him off the road it's his own fault - he should have stopped. The police over here are soft in comparison with American police methods - much more efficient.

OK. My knee-jerk reaction is that he's got a new bike, took it out for a spin, broke the speed limit, panicked, and over zealous police officers over reacted - result - a tragic accident.
But then again he could be a drug dealer.
Who knows? Hopefully the IPCC will get to the bottom of it.
By the way, if the police are always right, why do we need a IPCC?

I never said they were always right - I said the idiot should have stopped.

You said a lot of things - most of which made you look like a heartless bastard.....

Indeed - I know it certainly does look that way, but it's just I care more about the victims - those who are run over, crashed into, shot, stabbed, molested, abused. They always seem to be forgotten. I also don't like people throwing emotive words like "tragedy" around. Is it a tragedy that a man decided to take off from the police in a 50 minute pursuit? He was in control - he knew what he was doing...

Given more time I'd look for other reports but news these days seems to consist of regurgitations of the same report.

Biker Forum has a similar discussion to this one. He was an enthusiastic cyclist, which isn't a crime. The pursuit ran for an hour and 50 miles and included a police helicopter. There are some interesting posts and opinions on that thread, but I think it's remarkably free of bias.

A thread at Yahoo Answers begins with a rant but again the cyclist gets about the same support seen on this thread.

Back to basics. If a 54 year old on a bike opens the throttle and rockets through the streets after he's been told to stop, then he's made his choice and he can wear it. Even if there are no police and he kills himself, same applies. I'd rather the irresponsible driver is the sole casualty.

The general issue seems to be, when should pursuit be pressed? One view is that unless there's a reason to apprehend for a serious crime, high speed pursuit is out. I am unclear as to why he was asked to stop in the first place. Did he run a light? Did some officer recognise him, do a plate check and find warrants? Was he a mere traffic offender or was he selling dope to schoolkids? In my view, once he rocketed off at high speed, he was endangering the public and should have been stopped - as a poster elsewhere said, with the serious application seen in the USA. Don't know if a barrage of bullets is the answer, but chain spikes is a good option - if he doesn't slow down he'll get hurt though.

Reading elsewhere there is the possibility that though told to back off, the pursuing police didn't, and senior police are a bit livid about it all. There are procedural issues that we don't know enough about, so I really have nothing to say about the suspension of some of the police from driving duties, other than to note that the late biker's driving wasn't anything to brag about.

The best answer so far is that since the chopper was up, the cars could have pulled back, prepared a cordon and waited for a report that he'd slowed down. I also expect that at some point his registration would have been noted or caught on camera.

So he was a loving husband and grandfather. Unfortunately, before he decided to slow down he could have hit someone's grandkids. The consensus is that he should have stopped when he was asked, and he has nobody to blame but himself.

I agree with him having no one to blame but himself, I have issues with the harshness Callum shows on this one, however. It actually disturbs me that he shows the attitude he does yet professes to want to be a police officer.