Tom Pidcock has admitted he almost quit the Tre Valli Varesine in a rage after a police motorcyclist drove into the peloton and struck two of his Pinarello Q36.5 teammates.

Speaking after the race, in which he finished second, Pidcock said: "A police motorbike was going the wrong way down the course and crashed into two of our guys. I wanted to stop racing myself. I was mad. The guys all riding in front of me – for me – and two of them on the floor."

The British rider's teammate, Thomas Gloag, was forced to abandon the race while Marcel Camprubí, of Spain, was able to continue, but finished last.

"Luckily Marcel was OK, he could continue," Pidcock said. "Tom was also OK, in the end, but he stopped the race, and he has some stitches in the knee."

Camprubí posted images of his smashed bike on social media, with the caption: "Sad that you have to risk your life to race, one month after a tragic accident."

The latest lapse in race security came just weeks after the Welsh rider Fin Tarling was killed by a rogue van driving against the direction of the peloton during the Volta a Portugal in August. The incident remains under police investigation.

Pidcock dedicated his recent win in the World Cross Country Mountain Bike Championship to Tarling and his family.

There have been a series of near-misses with non-race vehicles this season, although on Tuesday the police rider was part of the race convoy. All those driving "in-race" have to follow strict rules on safety and on positioning on the road. "Things like this shouldn't happen," Pidcock said.

According to team sources, the police motorcyclist was riding ahead of the riders and entered a roundabout, then circled back into the path of the advancing peloton. Gloag, who was treated on site in an ambulance, was described as "pretty shocked".

There have been recent near-misses at races such as the Sauerlandrundfahrt in Germany, when vehicles twice entered closed roads and almost hit riders. During in the Tour of Britain Women, the Australian rider Maeve Plouffe found herself racing amid traffic and was nearly hit by car.

"While the race convoy was still in sight, and I was less than two minutes down [behind the peloton] there were cars from the general public coming at me from all directions, including one that nearly hit me on a roundabout," Plouffe said.

In the aftermath of Tarling's death, cycling's governing body, the UCI, was heavily criticised for its response to safety concerns. Richard Plugge, manager of Jonas Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a bike team, said: "Neither UCI president David Lappartient, nor anyone else, stands up and says: 'Wait a minute, we really need to think about how we are going to prevent this from happening in the future.'"

Last month, his British rider Matthew Brennan, who won five stages in the Vuelta a Espana, criticised race organisers and said that "nothing has changed" in the aftermath of Tarling's death. "I really think that is disgraceful," Brennan told the BBC.

"Instead of someone somewhere in these organisations saying: 'OK, this should never ever happen again', it feels the world has moved on, nothing has changed and there's events where cars have been on the course still."