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For those who consider the biker's actions excessively aggressive in some way, I offer the story of my father's actual excessively aggressive reaction to the same vehicular slight.
In the 70's, my dad drove a Lincoln Continental....not just a boat but a cruise ship and tank of a car. He also drank heavily and thought nothing of driving drunk...which likely explains (but does not excuse) his actions in this story.

Driving in Houston one night, at a merge a woman refused to let him in when it was his turn. This enraged him, so he followed her for miles until she stopped at a red light. He then crept up to her bumper and shoved her car into the middle of the busy intersection, stalling her car and leaving her panicked. Satisfied with his revenge, he just turned right and left. THAT is what I consider overly aggressive. I thought the biker here was incredibly restrained and handled the situation perfectly.

OK you made me re-watch this. At first I thought the lady had just made a mistake and missed a bike that came up beside her. The camera angle (FOV) makes it difficult to judge distances and directions very well.

On closer inspection she actually appears to come from behind and overtake in the right lane which is ending, and then merges into the exact spot where the bike is, and then does not react to the horn and keeps coming. That makes it really awkward for the biker to try to avoid her (speed up? slow down?), because its hard to predict what she is going to do next. So I understand the indignation a bit better and am willing to cheer the cop in this case, he looked very alert and professional (fake? just kidding).

I do wish people would use their mirrors, merge more safely (and faster) and use signals, and line-up properly when turning left, and u-turn safer and look before they open doors - any of those can easily kill a biker unintentionally. However I would be very reluctant to call the cops in these cases if I thought it was a mistake someone made and was lucky to get away with without major incident. Most of the time people learn from these close calls. This lady seemed to be talking back and confident in her ways.

There's no doubt that the person who's lane is ending needs to yield, and no one would argue that the lady in the car is a good driver. Still is it some sort of pride thing for the biker to prefer honking his horn and possibly getting wrecked over 1 second of breaking? I understand driving related righteous indignation, but it doesn't seem worth dying over.

This kind of thing is why my biker buddy wears spiked or studded gloves. When someone comes into his lane like that, his fist goes into their window, or face if the window is open. I'm not normally one to support hitting another person first, but in those cases it's self defense against an assault with a deadly weapon.
Not only did she not merge properly, she accelerated to pass him on the right in order to improperly merge. If she didn't see him there, she's a menace to the public and needs her license taken away, if she did see him there and did that anyway, she's an attempted murderer and needs her license and freedom taken away before she's successful in hitting the next bike.

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At first I thought he was overreacting slightly, looks like she was just trying to slowly, but dickisly force her way in.

But on second viewing she appears to have been completely ignoring the fact he was there, either deliberately or through ignorance. (I could't see her look at the biker even once and he was in the blind spot)

Either way that behaviour could easily prove fatal at higher speeds. And even at the speed they were going serious injuries are entirely possible, I nearly broke my wrist once merely dropping a bike (Yet walked away from a 40mph spill because life is strange like that).

I know motor-bicyclists may seem like whingy bitches sometimes, but we are absurdly vulnerable to ignorant assholes like this.
At the very least, this plays on the sub-conscious heavily and even minor slights can sometimes feel like attempted murder at the time.

Another time and place she might have caused a serious incident, so I'm glad she got a stern talking to at the very least.

But yeh, this is small fry in the grand scheme of things. I usually just move on, but had I been filming and then run across a police car.....I might well have done the same here. (Though I do make a big point to stay out of blind spots these days as most car drivers don't bother to check it)

*ftw for the biker.

I disagree on nearly all points.

Can't outrun the radio. That's why they have backup. They can't outrun the helicopter in town either, and there's no escape on the freeway if the cops roadblock it.
I guess you didn't notice the one they did hit. No one pulled a gun and attacked the cop, did they?
Could have trapped them all in the underpass if they were on the ball. They should have come in with 4-5 cars at once and blocked it off front and rear, then shot anyone trying to escape.
Really, you assume they're so dumb they would all commit crimes armed (making just dirty riding a violent felony) and have a shootout with the cops (which would instantly make any group riding a SWAT priority from now on). Guaranteed, the first time that happens is the last time more than 3 motorcycles ride together without being stopped and harassed anywhere in the country.
Couple of hundred?!? I only saw around 50. Cops take control of riots that have thousands -tens of thousands of actors all the time. That's no excuse or reason.
They aren't any danger to the police or public if they're wrecked on the road.
Police follow in hopes of catching them in any way, be it trapped, fallen, wrecked, given up, went home, on camera, etc.
Lots that can be done. Since they have multiple camera views of all of them, they can stop them any time they see a bike that looks like one of them on the road and try to put them in prison for wreckless endangerment (a good reason all riders should HATE these people, innocent bikers get harassed for having similar bikes all the time). I do understand that SOME of those bikes are stolen, or unregistered, but most are not and those riders may give up their compatriots.
1%ers only make up 1%.

My point is, if police take this seriously like the attack on the public that it is and aggressively go after them with the cop cars, they will think twice and not operate on YOUR assumptions that the cops won't do a thing....which is why they continue this crap, that assumption. If every single time a group goes 'riding dirty' at least one of them ends up dead or paralyzed, it will end FAST.
You know how much damage that cop car would suffer by running them over....none! ;-)

They were playing with the police the entire time, pretty much all of those bikes could outrun even the police helicopter if they wanted to. (not exaggerating)

If the police took to more aggressive stopping tactics, the riders would simply give it all the beans and disappear as soon as they saw them, instead of goading them like they did in that vid.

They could try and set up a fortified position in their path or take swipes into the crowd but that leads into the big one for me; many of them likely have guns & other weapons! If the police escalate the violence to death and serious injury by ramming & spike traps or back them into a corner, they would be giving the bikers incentive to fight back.

I might argue that escalation of violence would be more dangerous to the public than the anti-social riding.

There was a couple of 100 of them at least. Unless you are going to call in the national guard or some such, no police force is likely to have the manpower to win that fight if it came to it. (these people are demonstrably a bit crazy after all)

The police aren't stupid. Ethics aside, a gang of a few 100 lunatics is just more than almost any police force can deal with when together. That's why they don't scatter, they know that in a pack they are basically untouchable.

Police follow and hope to catch out the ones that fall off or otherwise make a mistake. Beyond that all they can really do is go after the gang in the traditional way; informants, infiltrators, slip ups and so on.

I understand the outrage, but practically speaking there is little more can be done other than subsequent investigations by the gang unit. Very difficult as you can't prove a given bike was involved without plates and chassis numbers. Or for that matter that a given individual was riding it at the time anyway.

Ambulance was totally at fault.
The lights and sirens give them the right of way at a lights but doesn't give them license to completely ignore them. There was no way the biker could have seen or heard the ambulance there.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/You-shall-not-pass-Trolling-ram-and-biker

You shall not pass! - Trolling ram and biker! has been added as a related post - related requested by Payback.

Cult classic for bikers.
Fantastic movie.

First bike was '75 TS250.
Currently own
73 CB350 in very good cond.
99 KAW ZRX1100
03 HD Wide Glide.

Owned
03 WRF450

ALL fun.

My boy ( 11 yrs old) recently got the bug and pick up CRF125. I don't see him much after school.

.

I especially liked the repeating "clearly did not violate established procedures or tactics" part, but no indication that they understand that all that means is the established procedures and/or tactics need to be changed so they know they can't kick people who have surrendered and complied. It sounds a lot like they didn't learn anything and will be paying out more, and larger settlements in the future until the amount is large enough to wake them up.

I also liked the "Edwards acknowledged in his testimony that Wilkens had begun to comply with his commands when he landed the kick, but said he was unable to stop the kick because he “already had the muscles fired” in his right leg." part, like he still doesn't know there's video of him taking 2 steps forward then kicking all while the motorcyclist is going down to his knees. Just so much fail.

EDIT: Oh, I missed the brake fade part. I notice the hood dip, then rebound as he hits, then quickly lets off the brake, accelerates slightly, and turns right into the bike to ram it. Brake fade might let him roll forward slowly, it would not let the front of the car raise up like the brakes were released and accelerator hit, and would not turn the wheel in the direction of the biker. That wasn't brake fade, no way, it was an intentional ramming. I'm a bit surprised that wasn't brought up in court.