Police bicycle

Bicycle patrols are often assigned to locations that police cars cannot access and that officers could not effectively cover on foot, such as dense urban areas, pedestrian zones, and public parks.

The maneuverability of bicycles and their ability to navigate narrow and densely-packed areas easily and quickly offer advantages over police cars, though bicycles are slower than police cars, carry less equipment, and cannot be used to effectively enforce road laws, though they may still conduct traffic stops if possible; for example, a video of a Japanese bicycle officer stopping a Lamborghini Huracán, despite the massive speed difference between them, went viral in 2017.

Many manufacturers of bicycles offer police models, including Haro, Volcanic, Trek, Cannondale, Fuji, Safariland-Kona, Force, and KHS.

In the United Kingdom, emergency service bicycles were allowed to mount blue flashing lights from 21 October 2005.

Tires are usually semi-slick designs with smooth centers for street riding and mild tread or knobs on the outer edges to provide some traction if the bikes are ridden off a paved surface.

Common training topics include nutrition, clothing and protective equipment, bike maintenance and repair, prevention of accidents and common injuries, slow speed balance and handling, technical maneuvers, night operations, bike and patrol equipment, firearms training, patrol tactics, and unit-level formations and crowd control techniques.