a bicycle squad in 1888. With the advent of the safety bicycle and the bike boom of the 1890s, police bicycles came into widespread use in North American cities. Bicycles began to see greater adoption by rural departments around the same time. The Kent police purchased 20 bicycles in 1896, and there were 129 rural police bicycle patrols were operating by 1904.

As the ubiquity of automobiles, roads, and traffic offenses grew, many