Yup, law enforcement may not pursue reckless driving if it's too difficult to identify the vehicle or driver. A couple of weeks ago I video recorded a driver swerving across the road to drive the wrong way down the bike lane directly into my path. No license plate on the front of the vehicle driving toward me in the bike lane. I was forced out of the bike lane into the vehicle lane, just as a motorcyclist whizzed by at double the speed limit. And within a few minutes a similar incident occurred involving two SUVs.

I emailed the police with a short video clip showing both incidents. They said only that it wasn't illegal to park in the bike lane. They didn't seem unsympathetic. But without more information or a more egregious violation involving an actual collision rather than just a near miss, they weren't going to get involved.

So we're pretty much on our own.

And don't count on the notion of a ubiquitous surveillance state with video cameras everywhere. It ain't really happening in most of the U.S., and most of those video cameras are of such poor quality they're almost useless. Recently I've watched many surveillance videos of armed robberies and hit and runs, posted by local news outlets. About the only thing you can tell from those videos is that, yes, it appeared a human being committed a robbery; or, yes, a vehicle appeared to hit a bicyclist and not stop. The vehicle might have been a pickup or SUV or car, but you can't really see much more detail.