How can I get a police escort?

A brief blast from a police car makes me look up from my coffee in my local coffee shop.

A motor cycle with flashing lights comes up to the intersection I'm looking out onto. The light is against it, so the driver goes into the intersection carefully and stops the motor cycle. Then the driver holds up his hand to halt traffic before it gets into the intersection.

A slowly moving group of runners, bundled up against the cold of the day, run through the intersection. There is another motor cycle in front of them - presumably doing a leap-frog maneuver to get to the next intersection to stop traffic there. I count about 20 runners in the group.

Behind them is a police car with lights flashing. And another police car with lights flashing. And another, oh, this one's an unmarked car, with lights flashing behind that. And then another police car... and then an unmarked police van... and then another couple of police cars go by. And then finally the motor cycle leaves the intersection and drives on in the same direction that the rest of them just went in. I'm guessing that's one police car for every 2 runners. How does a group that small rate such an extravagance of police presence?

Oh, that's why: the runners ARE police. They have a banner in front of them - very colourful, says police, and um, something they are running for. Well, that's nice of them, to run for something that the casual observer can't read on their banner. I'm sure it's something worthwhile... I just don't know if it's worth 10 police cars and 2 motor cycles.

There are many running groups in Vancouver. You typically see 2 or 3 a day in and around downtown Vancouver. But most of them are on their own when it comes to traffic. They stop for red lights and run on the sidewalks, not down the middle of the road like that group did.

So how can an average running group get a police escort? Maybe every group just needs to have a member that is part of the police force. Or maybe they just need a banner to cary in front of the group. Or maybe they really don't want all the flashing lights when they're running, and it's not worth the effort to have people staring at them as they run slowly. It does look a bit like a funeral procession... ok, scratch that idea.