member about 20 years ago, at my first posting in Lloydminster, Sask. when mountain bike patrols started to be all the rage in policing. I have always been an avid mountain biker, and was excited to mesh my skills with my job duties. We used our own bikes and helmets, as we didn’t have any “police” bikes and wore whatever was comfortable, usually not resembling much of a uniform. I even remember an unnamed supervisor who was, how should I say it, not in the best of shape, on bike patrol with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. On one of my first patrols I wiped out in some loose gravel, in front of large group of people, receiving a loud round of applause.
Oh how times have changed. Now, thankfully, you need a police mountain bike course in order to ride on patrol and uniforms are strictly enforced. The key message hasn’t changed, in that mountain bike patrols are a key part of community policing and a great way to interact with the public and respond to certain types of calls. Many of our officers and auxiliaries in Sidney are mountain bike trained and thanks to our municipalities, we have brand new, top of the line bikes for the them to ride. You will see them on your streets from time to time, especially during special events.
Bike safety has always been one of our community policing initiatives and starting last year, we brought this message directly to local elementary schools. In the past, we did a community bike rodeo at a local recreation centre, inviting all local kids to attend, but after consultation with local principals, thought we would try something different.
The new presentation sees kids get safety lectures on helmets, arm signals and types of traffic control devices, then they ride around a mock town set up on the school’s playground. They ride around parked cars negotiate stop signs, crosswalks and even railway tracks (although not commonly found on the Peninsula). All of this is monitored and coached by officers and Lions Club volunteers.
Between the three elementary schools in our jurisdiction last year, we reached more than 750 primary students in this fashion, assisting them with safe riding in their communities. We are in the process of doing it again this year now that the nicer weather has arrived.
Bikes have always been an important part of childhood and perceived independence at that age, thus we want to assist kids in any way we can to ride in as safe a manner as possible. That rule also applies to our officers in today’s age of the Canada Labour Code. I probably could have used the course 20 years ago.
Cpl. Chris Swain is a supervisor and the media liaison officer for Sidney North Saanich RCMP.