I'm a cop. I'm your friend. Interesting story.

Good to see stuff like this get published.

In this war, we have to fight hard with all of the tools that we have available. In the vehicle code, there are so many laws and rules; that a motorist just turning on their engine, or a cyclist climbing aboard a pedaling device is breaking any number of laws/rules.

One of the things that we have to start doing is learning position techniques to force motorized traffic to obey the law. Of course this causes great anger, - but we have to do our part as well. One of things that I see most frequently is cyclists NOT taking up the whole lane when it is unsafe for a motorist to pass. This causes motorists to try to pass all cyclists whenever; and it is quite a dangerous precedent. As a Randonneur, and one who routinely does 24, 30, 40 hour rides, - I've seen a lot of bad, goofy, and downright unsafe behavior out there.

Apologies in advance if this is a rant or unrelated: but too often, - it's a point of frustration to see the police defending the motorist instead of the cyclist who is obeying the law.

i'd be even more pissed off if i was a cop.

cops like this are an embarrassment to the essentially honorable profession.

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Where would you want to swim ?

As a firefighter, I deal with cops everyday and I know that just like every occupation there are really good cops out there and there are really, really bad cops on the streets too. Unfortunately, we hear far more stories of horrid encounters with cops than we hear of the decent ones. It didn't mention anything about a dash camera that most cruisers are equipped with these days, it's funny how those recordings disappear when it's damning to the boys in blue. This is really an incredible story of how one person's perceived absolute power corrupted absolutely. Unreal...

Wow, that's some scary stuff there. It just goes to show that the Police are no different to any other collective of individuals, there are good and bad in all groups.

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

Yeah, but... there are more "bad" cops than good, - at least where I'm from. Meaning, police routinely side against the law, and for the motorists whenever a motorist/cyclist are involved in a dispute; which is pretty much every time a cyclist is on the road way.
Nothing is being done to protect cyclists from the motorists god given right and freedom to go as fast as they want to, whenever they want to; and are permitted to take whatever measures necessary to assert these rights. Police routinely enforce this.

Wow. It just makes the blood boil. I hope the civil suit ends positively. I can't agree more with the article's opinion that it is important for cyclists to stand up for their rights.

I also agree with a previous poster who mentioned cyclists needing to control the lane. I mostly ride solo except for one other friend. He's afraid to control the lane with me on certain curves of a road on a loop we ride. I think that it's understandably intimidating at first, but you get more comfortable with it as you do it more often.

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Gnothi Seauton.

Stupidity was weapons dont mix well.......
I hope his commander took away his baton, taser, and sidearm; and issued him a length of hot wheels track and squirt gun. What a retard'!

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persequetur vestra metas furiose

Is it just me though or as soon as the cop yelled at me the first time, I would have pulled over. Whether asked to or not.
Seems to me there was lack of judgement on both parties. Mostly with the officer but if there is one thing I have learned, if you treat the police with respect and don't give them any lip, chances are they will let you go on your way.

Wow, what a crazy story.

I did, though, get a laugh out of the officer's quote that they were standing up in the pedals "shaking their butts" at him to "taunt" him. More like they were standing up to get the hell out of there...

Wow, just wow. Like someone else mentioned. Too bad there isn't video.

The cop was obviously crazy but there is something about being on a bike that makes some riders a bit crazy too. I'm sure both of these guys, if they had been driving cars and run across this officer, they would have just pulled over immediately and said "Yes officer" "No officer" "Sorry officer" and been on their way in a few minutes, not laying cuffed on the ground after getting tasered. It almost always takes two to tango, even with a crazy cop.

I would say unbelievable but it isn't. Sad though, I hope their lawsuit makes enough of an impact where LEO's will learn the laws.

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"Sometimes you got to learn to hurt"

I agree with this.
I have enough cop friends...and in most cases they are just trying to do their jobs. I'm not going to worry about weather or not they could lawfully ask me to pull over or not...I'm going to pull over.

Granted I can be a bit of an obnoxious wise-ass...so if I were put in that situation I might have gotten a ticket for flicking that bastard off and shaking my naked ass at him. Then there wouldn't have been any question about weather or not I was just "standing on the pedals". :-)

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Blogging

We are having issues here with the county Sheriff's office. The lovely Sheriff has decided to interpret the cycling laws as he sees fit. He has also blogged about it on his website. He has a very similar view to the cop in the article, that bikes should not be on the road. The problem with this is the fact that motorists now believe their right to the road trumps a cyclist's and that the law will side with the motorist.

Since the Sheriff blogged about this, I have experienced many more close calls while out riding. I mainly ride by myself and am very respectful of motorists, but I don't hesitate to defend my position on the road on downhills and corners.

A link about our Sheriff's interpretation of Colorado Bike Law:

http://www.kansascyclist.com/...terpretation-of-law/

As a police officer and cyclist I hate seeing stories like this. Just remeber that there are as many jerk cyclist as there are jerk police officers. As for the differing stories, my experinece has been that the truth is always somewhere in between and that individuals perceptions of the same incident are often miles apart.

Just wanted to point out that the author comes very close to giving some bad advice, at least in California where I work. Per the law, you do not have the right to disobey a cop or resist arrest EVEN IF the arrest or detention is unlawful. It is up to the court or a jury to decide after the fact, based on the toatlity of the circumstances whether the arrest/detention was legal, not the individual. If people were allowed to resist stops they felt were unlawful then police officers would be using force all the time on lawful stops due to the suspects ignorance of the law. The best thing to do is comply with all commands, don't make any statements and take very good mental notes for use in court later. This is a crappy situation where the officer needs to learn how to use his verbal skills and command presence better and the cyclists need to learn how to behave when contacted by law enforcement. Both sides performed poorly.

I agree. Even though the officer was wrong, the cyclists exacerbated the situation. Did they really think that the guy was just going to let it drop and allow them to ride away? There doesn't seem to be a dispute that the officer was using his lights and siren so it's pretty obvious that he was telling them to pull over.

I'm not taking the officer's side in this. The story definitely suggests that he was out of line but after reading the first page, it was very easy to predict the outcome...which could have been avoided if the cyclists stopped and respectfully requested to speak with the officer's supervisor.

I can tell you for certain that this approach can work. I was riding in bumper-to-bumper traffic through Laguna Beach one weekend and decided it was safer to split the two northbound lanes of traffic than try to navigate the narrow space between the right lane and the parked cars. A police officer on foot yelled at me to stop doing what I was doing and I told her that what I was doing was legal. Her response was that if I didn't stop doing it, she would give me a ticket. So...I pulled over, walked up to her and asked her to show me what vehicle code I was violating. She started to get pissy with me so I asked her, "Will you please call your Watch Commander and have him or her meet us here to discuss it." For one reason or another, she decided she didn't want to do that, so I asked her if I could go. She told me I could and I went back to splitting the traffic. The whole thing probably cost me 3 or 4 minutes...much better than what these guys went through.

In CA you also have the right to proceed in a lawful manner to an area where you feel safe to pull over.

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"your horse is too high" - tigerchik

"Will you please call your Watch Commander and have him or her meet us here to discuss it."

-that's good. that's really good.