Arrested for no cycle helmet!

Stuff reports:

New Plymouth police have apologised to a couple after their 11-year-old daughter was left stranded on the Coastal Walkway when her father was arrested.

On Monday afternoon Ashley Hoeta was going for a bike ride with his daughter, when he was stopped by a police officer for not wearing a helmet.

Police are cracking down on cyclists who are not wearing helmets.

The officer told Hoeta he would give him a 14-day ticket, which meant if Hoeta could prove he had a helmet he would be let off.

The two exchanged words, Hoeta said.

“I was a bit peeved. There were two people who had just passed me with no helmets and he stopped me.”

He asked the officer if he had anything better to do, Hoeta said.

“I said: ‘If you were in India you could arrest 8 people on one bicycle’.”

Hoeta told the officer to write the ticket and he would check on his daughter, who was wearing a helmet, and had stopped a few metres away.

That’s when the problems started, Hoeta said.

A police car arrived, with two officers and they said they were taking him to the station.

Hoeta was worried about his daughter, but they weren’t interested, he said.

“I got taken away and she got left on walkway. I gave her my phone, said ring Mum.”

In the car the officers asked why Hoeta hadn’t just told their colleague his name and address.

“He hadn’t asked,” Hoeta said.

So he was hauled down to the police station because he didn’t have a cycle helmet. And was forced to abandon his 11 year old daughter.

Every week there seem to be more and more stories of the Police getting out of control.  The scrapping of the speeding tolerance, the targeting of Uber, the squashing of a local Police initiative to test if people are over the drink drive limit, and now dragging someone to the Police station because he had no cycle helmet. It seems like they have lost their sense of priorities.