*MY* bike looks more like a motorcycle than his, especially with the lighting on it, and I have yet to get stopped by ONE police car on it, though I have had a number of officers both fire and police compliment me on the lighting and whatnot. That's been true in Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, and Chandler, which are the only places I have regularly been to. I don't ride in Scottsdale because there is an attitude prevalent there even towards non-motorized cyclists that I can't abide, and most of the other areas are farther away than I would want to go.
I did have at least one of the officers that responded to the after-closing robbery at the store I work at ask one of the others "is that even legal?" when I was answering his personal-interest questions about the bike, as everyone was wrapping up and I could finally go home, but he answered them about the legalities (correctly) so I did not have to.
Now, when I was just a regular cyclist on my plain old pedal-only normal-colors upright bicycles with baskets on the rear, for a couple of decades, I would get stopped in various places for many reasons, none of which ever resulted in a problem, but were annoying. Keeping in mind that I always ride in the road, never on the sidewalk; if I have to be on sidewalks at all, I am either riding on ones *marked* as such within parks, or I get off and walk the bike while on them.
As the person in the vid said, I was told by some officers to get off the road and onto the sidewalk (even on streets with bike lanes!) and then often another would pass and tell me to get off the sidewalk and onto the road. Sometimes the two would trade off, playing a game with me, probably hoping to start something, but I just did as they said, and advised each one which other officer told me to do the opposite, and asked if they would please talk to each other to clear up which way I should be riding. This was almost always in Phoenix, but sometimes in Glendale. Never anywhere else.
The other things I was stopped for ranged from the main one of being stopped to ask if I had been in such-and-such an area at such and such a time (they were probably looking for a cyclist that had done something wrong in traffic or one that had committed another crime and rode away on a bike, as that was what I was sometimes told just before being left to ride away), to asking why I was wearing so much heavy padding/protective gear
, to simply asking if I had seen a person or car of such-and-such description, etc.
Oddly, on my DayGlo and electric bikes, I have never had any of them actually pull me over at all that I can recall right now (though I have a feeling I'm forgetting something). Just sometimes turn around and follow me for a bit, and pull parallel to me at traffic control stop and ask a question or tell me something.
I guess being so obviously visible and different takes me out of the class of "suspicious persons" that they typically are looking for, as it would be kind of hard to hide in the crowd.
Yes, officers can be arrogant, and rude on occasion. I think many of them in Phoenix are terrible drivers in that they don't even bother to follow the rules of the road, and do dangerous (to other traffic) things without reason, speeding thru badly-lit areas at night without any emergency lights or sirens going, running red lights (again, no lights/siren), hardly ever signalling turns/lane changes, etc. Most of them seem fairly polite.
I do still get a feeling of dread every time I see a police vehicle pacing me or in the area obviously being observant, because of all the times I was stopped for zero reason before, as it was such a waste of my time and often made me anxious (I just don't like being interrupted in the middle of rides like that; or anything else--interruptions always bother me a LOT). But I don't think they're all that unreasonable, and I daresay he had quite the attitude toward them--that will set off most people's own attitudes if they didnt' have it before.
