This. It’s all about varying degrees of situational awareness.
I was about to say it’s the same reason they still have mounted police - highly mobile, but still “in the thick of things.”
Motorcycle cops, in the UK at least, are used for protection on the roads for VIPs and ensuring they get to their destination fast.
And it also looks fancy with a fleet of police motor cycles swarming around a VIP car. I once saw Kofi Annan being transported around town and it was a very smooth operation.
The Israeli Police has a special motorcycle-mounted rapid-response counter-terror unit. They’re armed with M-4 carbines and operate with two guys on a bike - one driving, the other shooting.
The Parisian riot-busting police detachment also used this tactic for some time, to deal with stragglers and runners - one guy driving, one guy with a long nightstick to trip or bash sassy college kids’ heads in at full speed. Lovely, really.
The practice was discontinued in the late 80s after the death of an unarmed, non-combative, non-rioting-at-all black guy (Malik Oussekine) who just happened to be out at night when the *voltigeurs *were loose in town. Bit of bad press, there.
The California Highway Patrol commonly uses motorcycle cops to drive through heavy traffic and look for violations. Checking that vehicles in carpool lanes have the required number of people is common. They’ll also catch lane-weavers and margin-drivers.
Really? That’s - exceedingly cool, actually. Sort of Mad Max meets Asian steppe raiders.
Do the Israeli Police have any designs on Asia Minor? Because they totally should.