I came back from running errands at lunch to see two Raleigh Police officers patrolling the neighborhood on bikes.
“I’m glad to see y’all out!” I told them and waved as they passed by. They seemed pretty happy to be out, too.
The office for most cops is their car. Cops on bikes have the great outdoors! The odds a thief could win a footchase with a cop on the biking beat would be pretty low, too, I imagine.
One of the things I noticed last year in Holland and Australia is how accessible police in those countries seem to be. They’re visible. They walk the sidewalks. They’re interacting with the citizenry. American cops spend too much time in their cars. Cars may get them around faster but they get quantity at the expense of quality.
Having police cruising their beats on bicycles builds stronger community ties and that makes everyone safer.
I’d agree that over-all Dutch police seems to be more accessible than the U.S. police, especially because they walk around and use bicycles instead of driving a patrol car.
At the other hand, a common complaint in the Netherlands is that the police doesn’t have enough authority and is ‘too soft’, and people refer to the U.S. as an example of where -no matter what- you are polite to a police man and have respect for the police.
If Americans had true respect for police the police wouldn’t need guns.
As Sheriff Andy Taylor, that character played by the great North Carolinian Andy Griffith on The Andy Griffith Show, once said: “When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s getting might really be fear. So I don’t carry a gun because I don’t want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I’d rather they respect me. ”
P.S. Guus, you can learn a lot about Southern culture and mythology by watching The Andy Griffith Show.