Who is at fault?

[stuo]

How situations escalate...

[AlexisStarlyn]

I honestly don’t see anyone breaking laws or driving dangerously until the cops arrive.
However that comment section is DEFINITELY at fault.


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[CROSSBOLT]

No ride discipline. No formation. Evading. This was a mob dominating the highway.

[vintagegarage]

Riding in the passing lane while not passing, hogging the road.. bikes at fault, at least in Florida.    No need to take up all the lanes.. maybe ok in Missouri?, but still discourteous.. what ever happened to the golden rule?  Shame on the bikers..

[hypophthalmus]

Maybe there's more to this story, and I'm not especially familiar with the Missouri law. But I'm inclined to side against the police in general, and especially in this case.

For sure, the motorcyclists are being pretty lax about obeying traffic law. You'd have to convince me that this isn't typical driving for the area though.

If you want to talk about hogging the road, check out this picture of typical Dallas traffic: https://preview.tinyurl.com/yc5qv6fk But I guess that's cars? Do you think they're holding up traffic?

The most important thing about this, is that the police are COLLIDING WITH CIVILIANS on motorcycles over presumably traffic offenses. That's unacceptable.

In my opinion, they should be pulled over individually for individual offenses. If that's too onerous for the police, then that's so sad that law enforcement is harder when you live in a free state... which of course we don't.

[hypophthalmus]

Here's a link to a news article:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/hundreds-of-motorcyclists-take-to-st-louis-roads-as-police/article_8296beda-bb38-5a2e-811f-e3ca751c1ad7.html

It sounds like they were setting up roadblocks (which should probably be illegal) for motorcycles only (which should definitely be illegal).

And here's a telling comment:

Well i will say this much about the state troopers that stopped the ride when we first got on the highway....not a single rider at this time had done anything illegal...but the state troopers came on full force....hit a few riders with batons....tried to yank people off bikes while they were still moving..i had a gun drawn on me while i was already stopped with my bike shut off...so....im pretty sure thats police brutality at its finest....one girl watched her boyfriend get hit and cuffed for no reason...so she tried to run...and they hut her on her bike with a cruiser....she wrecked...probably got hurt....then she got cuffed on the ground...and not once did i see an ambulance pull up for her....but they were real quick to load her bike on a tow truck to vet those inpound fees...i understand stunting is illegal on public roads....but there was a lot of us that were there just for the ride and the get together....the police caused more damage to public traffic by being there than we would have on our bikes without them. They should have just tried to go after the ones who were breaking the law....instead they shht an entire portion of the highway down to beat bikers and created a huve traffic jam....and we are getting blamed for the traffic too.

[Tiny]

watching the video and reading the news article I would kind of side with the local police on this one. in the video i did notice that most of the bikers that were "fleeing" did not have any plates on their bikes and that some not a lot were actually stopping for the police. Its like up here when they do a "ride" check during the holidays  checking for drunk drivers only the guilty try to flee.
 By the sounds of the article all the police wanted to do was weed out the illegal drivers. blocking the path and trying to check drivers is not illegal but the use of extra force may to too much.

[randyo]

an excellent example of why I don't ride with groups anymore

[MJR]

I noticed that large sections of that highway have solid don't change lane markings. Courtesy says they shouldn't take up the whole freeway. The incidents involving police intervention are with regards to evading and riding opposite to traffic flow I see.

[eamartin]

A bunch of motorcyclists looking for trouble, behaving badly, being inconsiderate, some breaking the law and some cops who made bad decisions.  Plenty of blame to go around (more blame to the cyclists in my opinion). 

[CROSSBOLT]

"Streetfighterz ride of the century?" The article related what these kind of people did last year describing utter chaos. Cops went over the top ramming bikes but I think I understand their frustration however their actions unjustified. I am not hot for group rides, either....