Bad guys often utilize bicycles in their work. Where do you hide a TV.. in the bushes etc until later when you can come back. That's just an example. Often drug couriers use bicycles to and from drop offs. Fact not fiction. While it is often obvious to pick out the "real" riders from the not so real ones having some probable cause to stop someone on a bike can reap some interesting things. In NY for instance lights are required at certain times of the day as are bells etc. Stopping a "violator" and being able to articulate the purpose of the "stop" is often not fully realized until court. I know ...but I was stopped for..blah blah blah. A million one sided incidents. There are at least two side to each one of these stories. Some may even have validity in being a pure "ball busting " routine by a cop OR for that matter just plain ignorance to the appropriate laws pertaining to bicycles and the operation of them. Now let us venture to the weekend worriers dressed like their favorite super hero. Most obey the rule of the road. As with anything it usually is the one percent that screw it up for the rest of us. They are the ones that feel the rules don't apply to them etc etc. They make us all stand out. Everyone makes mistakes. Often you can avoid tickets etc by acting in a mature manner with the cop. The street is not the place to hold court . Judges make the final decision, but again you can often avoid going this far by exercising some common sense. I can think of a young man on this board a while back having a problem with his school bus and school on where he was supposed to ride. He took a mature approach and did win in the end mostly by how he approached the problem. A lesson we can all learn by. Common Sense and Maturity.... think about it. Just a thought.