Police should practice what they preach

as someone who relies on a bicycle and/or public transit to get
around, i think wearing a helmet should be up to the individual, the
government has been encroaching on our personal freedoms too long,
next thing you know, youll need a permit to open a can of paint.

If i realize the risks of riding sans helmet and am willing to take
that risk, its my own problem if i get hurt! same goes for seat belts
in cars, your choice, your problem!

I complained about the St. Paul police turning on their sirens/lights
to zip through stop lights ... only to turn them off and resume normal
speed on the city streets. THey don't feel like they should sit and
wait at a light like the rest of us. Drives me nuts.

Was this one officer or only occasionally? The reason I ask is that
sometimes they have a place to be but want to keep a low profile.

Because, driving an ambulance 'lights and sirens', we sometimes got
cancelled from the call. So we would have to turn them off, and go on
as usual. Believe it or not, I was completely embarrassed when this
would happen right as we passed an intersection.

Been flipped off, honked at, and given general dirty looks by
motorists.

I don't know anything about St. Paul Police but where I live, the
behavior you describe is how our officer's respond to a call going
"code 2". Code 3 is priority response-high speed, lights & sirens
until they reach the scene, code two is relative high speeds, lights &
sirens only at stop lights. However, I have also seen officer's misuse
their lights & sirens to avoid waiting at stop lights.

and contact the police dept too


i don't know about the cops
but i know back when i was in the military... if i was riding my bike
without a helmet and got in an accident, the navy would NOT pay for my
treatment since wearing a helmet was an official base policy. (we even
had to sign our names to it)

same for seatbelts etc...


not to mention it's a bad example for them to ride around like that

I fell off my bike going down a really steep hill at a high rate of
speed. Bent the forks on my bike like a pretzel, and I hit a fire
hyrant as I tumbled away. I recovered fine.

On a local paved rails to trails path, I recently saw a woman training
her 7 year old to ride a bike. He would go 50 feet by himself, and
then fall off the side onto the grass shoulder. He would get up, she
would start him off on the pavement, and the same thing would happen.
NO helmet, NO protective gear. Short sleeves and shorts. I
congratulated her for not caving in to all this protective crap the
government pushes on us.

Now motorcycles, that is a different story. I live in PA where our
esteemed government decided we can go out and split our heads open at
60 mph, without protection. And we actually pay these people's
salaries.