South African Motorcycle Police Officer Using Guns During Suspect Chase

For starters, we suspect that the guys being chased by the moto-cop did something really bad. Otherwise, we might have seen this fellow asking for air support or ground support in the shape of road blocks and all the hassle.

Some say that maybe decisive help was not exactly at hand in that area, so the officer took things in his own hands. At  the end of the footage we see that a police truck was also present, even though we guess it stood fewer chances to catch up with the bad guys.

Being right-handed on a bike makes things harder in such a predicament

Being able to shoot a gun while riding a motorcycle and hitting the target is probably one of the mandatory skills bike cops must master, but things are far more complex than you'd believe in the first place.

A motorcycle can be very unstable during such a pursuit, making hitting the target a difficult task. Still, not hitting the evading vehicle is not the biggest issue. NOT hitting innocent civilian by-standers is the main idea, and we are glad to see that this officer didn't add to the force's body count.

Another thing is the fact that the rider is right-handed. Therefore, he must shoot the gun using his right hand, to avoid stray bullets from hitting the wrong target.

But to do this, he must take his hand off the throttle, grab the gun from the holster, aim and shoot. And all this while the bike is slowing down because of the engine brake...

And if the chased vehicle doesn't stop, it's back to square one: holster the gun, throttle ahead, catch up, grab the weapon, shoot, and so on. Good to see that the fleeing suspect didn't know that in such scenarios bikes are very hard to stop. He could have braked violently, not giving the cop enough time to react and lose the gun to grab the front brakes. Almost 100% chances to come off the bike, and better chances for the culprit....