kevindsingleton 

My wife and I rode down to the local Catholic church, on Wednesday, to walk through the car show they've been featuring, each week. They had a DJ, and food and drinks, and some really nice cars, going back to the '30s, or earlier, and all the way up to current models (Corvettes, Chargers, etc). There were some really nice examples from the muscle car era, a couple of Corvairs, and a few of my favorites: air-cooled Volkswagens!

As we were leaving, a police car had stopped a motorist, and they ended up pretty much blocking the entrance to the parking lot. I'm not sure if a citation was issued, or not, but, the way there were stopped, we were going to have to work our way around them to get on our way.

The wife went around the police car on the passenger side, but that looked like more work than I wanted to invest, so I went around on the pavement on the driver's side. The officer put his window down as I approached, and reminded me that we're supposed to be riding "with traffic". I told him that I am aware of that, but we're just going down to the bottom of the hill to grab a bite at the restaurant, and we couldn't cross at this location because of the barrier in the middle of the roadway. He said that most people don't know they're supposed to ride "with traffic", and I thanked him for the reminder, and went on my way.

All in all, a positive interaction, and no hostility sensed from the cop towards cyclists. I did notice that the officer is much too young to be a cop, or even to drive a car, and I'm surprised that they're letting adolescents carry badges and guns, these days! When did that happen?

genec

Perhaps about the time they started sending young men to war.

kevindsingleton 

"The first war in recorded history took place in Mesopotamia in 2700 BCE between Sumer and Elam."

Around then, you think? Jeezus!

genec

Yeah, then those young cops didn't have cars, just carts...

BTW do you know how old he was, actually? Or are you simply guessing?

I was once told that I was too young to have the resume and experience I had... I responded that "bicycling and swimming have kept me young." I got the job.

Noddy

A friend got stopped for a ridiculously minor pretty much made-up "infraction" - the kind of thing 1000s of motorists do every day, unavoidably, in the course of normal driving.
He asked the young trooper if his Mom knew he was out dressing up as a police officer and it went downhill from there.

ItsJustMe

I'm glad that they're letting people know they shouldn't be riding against traffic. I see it most days and I've given up saying anything.

Milton Keynes

Yes, a lot of people still have the misinformation that bicycles should ride against traffic for some reason. I always learned it "ride with traffic, walk against traffic."

rachel120

I've given up trying to figure out people's ages. The 14 year olds look 18, the 25 year olds look 18.

That is cool, that your encounter was positive. While the barrier is a huge problem, he could have told you to go the other way until a legal U turn was possible. It's nice that he didn't.

BobbyG

A positive interaction is always good. As far as "adolescent" officers...a few years ago I was at the mall with my wife and I noticed an older sister pushing a stroller with her infant younger sister in it. I thought how nice, and then saw another, and another and so on. I realized these were the mothers, but they looked 12 years old to me. And then there are the 12 year old boys with full hipster beards, but the weirdest thing is the bald, late-middle age man with gray chin-whiskers and wrinkles that stares back at me from the bathroom mirror every morning.

VegasTriker

You may have run into a youth from an Explorer Post (part of BSA) that is attached to the police department. Las Vegas has a similar program. They wear a uniform similar to a police uniform and not the one worn by most Scouts. That person may have been helping the police with crowd control. See pictures of uniform here: https://www.facebook.com/LVMPDExplorers/ Age range is 16 to 20.

These people don't carry guns!

rachel120

You have to be careful about the mother/sister assumption. More than once one of those 14-that-look-18 year old girls have come up to me at work with a toddler sibling in tow and I thought they were one of those 25-that-look-18 mother and child. There's a huge number of families out there with crazy age gaps where the oldest teen helps with the baby sibling in an au pair fashion.

BobbyG

I had an 18-year-old female friend senior year in high school whose mother became pregnant. My girlfriend joked that it was really her baby, but her mother wanted her to finish school.

kevindsingleton 

Yeah, that guy needs to go back to where he came from! I'm busy being twenty-one, over here!

kevindsingleton 

Congrats on getting the job, and on keeping your youthful appearance. The cop is probably in his mid-20s. In this part of PA, the towns are so small that we share cops, so most are part-time, and work shifts in several jurisdictions. Only the chiefs are full-time employees, and the "beat cops" aren't getting enough hours to support themselves, much less a family and mortgage. Generally, they're collecting experience that they can use to apply to the state police, or in a bigger city. It's not as easy as it used to be, being a cop in Mayberry, USA!

kevindsingleton 

I wondered if he would say something like that. It would have been a couple hundred yards out of the way. Peanuts, really. Maybe he just filled his quota, and didn't need another citation in his book!

kevindsingleton 

Nah. We're way too "small town" for anything like that. Besides, he was alone in the car, and he had just written a citation to the driver that pulled into the lot to see the car show. He had a badge; I didn't see his gun, but I'm sure he's a full-fledged member of the local PD. They hire them when they're young and cheap, and can still work weird shifts and live off of part-time pay. He's probably fresh out of military service, and looking to join the state police, at his first opportunity.

kevindsingleton 

The strangest thing, in a similar vein, that I've ever seen was a friend of mine who was about fifteen at the time who had an uncle that was a newborn baby. You just never know!

genec

Keep cycling and you too will hang on to at least a bit of your youth.

johnnyspaghetti

The general rule is the police have been empowered with far more authority then they should be allowed for the amount of education/experience required to make a snap decision with hollow point rounds.

rachel120

Would? Probably not, unless he had just gotten off of vacation where he was stuck behind multiple bicycles and waiting for opportunity to pass safely all the way home.

Could? Technically yes. But it's as likely as actually being nabbed for jaywalking when there was no traffic to dodge or dropping the biodegradable paper wrapping from a single mint.

kevindsingleton 

Well, he did. For all I know, he's a cyclist, too. More likely, though, he'd rather be riding horses or tractors. Where I live, there aren't all that many cyclists, but lots of us rednecks!

Milton Keynes

Yes, to this day my oldest sister still chides me about having to change my diaper when she was a teenager and should have been out having fun instead of babysitting.