Show creator Rick Rosner was a reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and he got the idea for the series during a coffee break on an evening patrol shift in the mid-1970s after seeing two young CHP officers on motorcycles.

Rosner later created the series 240-Robert, which resembled a hybrid of CHiPs and Emergency!.

In the fifth season, Erik Estrada went on strike over a dispute about syndication profits and missed three episodes, during which he was replaced by Bruce Jenner as Officer Steve McLeish.

Despite their successful on-screen chemistry, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada did not always get along behind the camera, and Estrada managed to have producers fire Wilcox before the sixth and final season, with Wilcox replaced by Tom Reilly.

Bruce Penhall, who joined the cast as cadet Bruce Nelson, was a real motorcycle speedway rider who won the 1981 and 1982 Speedway World Championships; he officially announced his retirement from speedway racing on the podium of the 1982 World Final in order to become a full-time cast member.

The season 6 episode 'Speedway Fever' used real footage and dubbed commentary from the 1982 Speedway World Final at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, with scenes filmed in the pits during the actual event, and Penhall had a bodyguard and had his makeup done in front of his competitors.

Production made use of freshly built but not-yet-opened Los Angeles freeways for filming, moving locations several times across seasons (from La Canada Flintridge, to La Crescenta, to Sylmar) as each stretch opened to the public traffic.

Erik Estrada had no prior motorcycle experience before being cast and underwent an intensive eight-week course to learn how to ride; it was later revealed in 2007 that he did not actually hold a motorcycle license during the show's production.

Estrada suffered several injuries while performing his own stunts, including a serious accident in August 1979 while filming a season three episode that fractured several ribs and broke both wrists; this hospitalization was written into the show's storyline.

The main theme heard from season two onward was composed by John Parker, replacing an earlier unused composition by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter who had scored the pilot; Alan Silvestri arranged this version and served as the series' primary composer, being its sole composer from seasons three to five.