Tom Casady may have looked almost as cool as Erik Estrada as he pulled up to the intersection of 56th and South streets on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with his crisp police uniform and mirrored sunglasses. But inside, he was terrified.

Perhaps that's why he forgot to put down his feet and dropped his Harley on its side.

"I was an incompetent motorcycle rider," Lincoln's police chief is unashamed to admit.

He injured his left leg in a nasty collision with a 1964 Chevrolet at the intersection of 24th and Holdrege streets, and his leg has never been the same.

Back then, the Lincoln Police Department had about 30 motorcycles, running two full shifts of motor officers, seven days a week. But the department stopped using motorcycles in the late 1970s and hasn't used them since.

Casady's personal experience with motorcycles is one reason he long resisted reviving motorcycle enforcement.

But after a decade of discussions with his two assistant chiefs, the chief has decided it's time for Lincoln officers to return to motorcycle enforcement and will ask the Lincoln City Council to approve a $26,000 two-year agreement with Frontier Harley-Davidson of Lincoln to lease six police motorcycles.

He understands, and outlines, the downsides of motorcycle enforcement. After all, he notes, "We live in Nebraska."

Motorcycles are impractical several months of the year. You can't transport a prisoner on a bike, and he knows full well that motorcycle riders are more likely to get injured if they have an accident.

But he's been convinced that the good outweighs the bad: Officers on motorcycles can more easily nab red light runners, and better handle traffic congestion during special events, such as parades or vice presidential visits.

Lincoln police surveyed departments in U.S. cities with populations of 185,000 to

235,000 people to see how many used motorcycles.

"We're the only one that doesn't have motorcycles," he said.

Even departments that endure more extreme climates, such as Anchorage, Alaska, use them.

"That certainly helped" convince him, he said.

The cost of the bikes is much more affordable today, with companies offering competitive leasing arrangements — the lease includes maintenance of the bikes. He also said the training, supervision and motorcycles have improved, that safety would be a top priority.

Casady had never even sat on a motorcycle before being assigned to the coveted motorcycle squad in the 1970s and had only two days of training — which consisted of riding around the state fairgrounds — before he began his shift as a motor officer. The sergeant who trained him promised it would be just like driving his 1971 Volkswagen  — except for the clutch and accelerator — and instructed him to turn with his body, not the handlebars. On his first trip down the midway, Casady crashed into a fence.

Motorcycles are much more sophisticated now, he said, with anti-lock brakes and better balance.

"A bowling manufacturer owned the company back when we rode them," he said. "They were just notoriously oil-leaking, shaking dinosaurs of motorcycles at times."

He said today's police motorcycles are nothing like the ill-maintained one he rode — which sometimes had to be pushed up a hill by neighborhood kids so he could pop the clutch downhill and jump start a dead battery.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.