And another one bites the dust.

Yawn. Another night, another sports bike rider caught after running.

Remember when nobody could catch these guys? The general consensus back when I was going through cop school was that it was pretty much worthless to try to pursue a motor, especially a sport bike, because a decent rider would leave a pursing cop car in the dust. Even motor cops, who were the guys teaching my traffic school, would regularly just disregard when a cycle ran, because they understood that, when running on a bike, the guy running has the advantage of action and good thrust/weight ratio. It was especially common knowledge that the guy who bought a speedy sport bike was such a rider aficionado, that he also would have the requisite skills to evade successfully.

But things have changed, a LOT, just in the past couple of years.

Some of it may be the higher wages and lower interest rates making motors more available to the masses. Some of it may be that sports bikes are no longer the brand new thing, so there are plenty of used ones on the ground, bringing the price down. Some of it may be that the surge in fuel prices over the last two years has made a bunch of cagers decide to try riding motorcycles, and they want to look cool while doing it, so they get Ninjas and the like. (Sorry-- all soft drinks are "Cokes," and all sports bikes are "Ninjas," to my narrow-minded, Southern Culture mindset.)

At any rate, this seems to be the Age Of The Common Man on cycles. And these guys have heard the old "Cops can't catch a sports bike, so they won't even try" wives' tales. And they're writin' checks with their expert throttles that their newbie asses just can't cash. Neophytes on bikes are running when they probably just would have gotten a ticket or bonded out in a couple of hours.

Evading In A Vehicle is a State Jail Felony, and while I agree with Tamara that we're making too many things felonies, I hold with this one-- running in a vehicle (even a motorcycle) is inherently reckless, and endangers bystanders and the officers who, in my opinion, are bound by duty to attempt to apprehend a running suspect. About half the time, when we catch a running motorcyclist, we have to roll EMS for them. In that instance, they get charged with a felony in addition to going to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and having their multi-thousand dollar vehicle messed up. And any warrants that they had get piled on.

Most of the guys running on bikes lately are getting caught, and about half of them are getting hurt. All are getting charged with felonies.

Why does that seem worth it? Do any of these guys weigh the options?

Maybe we need to start raising the consciousness that the myth is not true. That you can be caught on a bike.