The Scourge of the Dirt Bike
By Albert B. Kelly
If you’ve spent any time at all driving in Bridgeton, you
have no doubt seen them and if not that, you’ve most likely heard the engines
revving, sounding a bit like weed whackers on steroids, as they weave in and
out of traffic with reckless abandon.
I’m talking about the plague of illegal dirt bikes that race
about the community at various times. Motocross it ain’t, but what it is for
all involved is dangerous. I say that because, regardless of whether or not the
dirt bikes themselves are road legal and they’re not, the mostly young drivers
have little regard for traffic laws, pedestrians, or the normal ebbs and flows
of traffic.
I’ve seen them do everything from riding at high speed on
the shoulder of the road to popping “wheelies” in the middle of Route 49. I’ve
heard similar concerns from several residents. This is dangerous on many
levels. For one thing, any small miscalculation or a small pot hole in the
street, and there is a good chance that the driver of that dirt bike will
suffer serious trauma.
But even if you assume that any injury is the price the dirt
bike driver pays for reckless behavior; no one in the public, whether a
law-abiding motorist or a pedestrian, should be put at risk because of these dangerous
dirt bikes ripping through our streets. And the problem is not unique to
Bridgeton as I’ve learned from my fellow mayors.
Naturally, we wonder why the police don’t just chase them
down, ticket the offender, and confiscate the dirt bike. It sounds simple, but
it’s not. For one thing, police officers have to consider public safety always and
then the specific circumstances in determining when to engage in a
pursuit.
Without getting too technical, police officers are certainly
permitted to attempt to stop these dirt bikes and even get close enough to perhaps
identify the individual driving the dirt bike if that is possible. But when
does this attempt to stop or identify turn into a full-blown pursuit…that
depends?
The attempt to stop a vehicle (read dirt bike) turns into a
pursuit when the officer reasonably believes that the driver of a fleeing
vehicle is aware of the officer’s attempt to stop them and is ignoring the
officer and doing other things to elude or otherwise speed up or away. That’s when it can turn into a pursuit.
But over and above everything else, is public safety. What
that means is that unless the driver has committed certain serious non-motor
vehicle-related offenses, like fleeing the scene of a serious crime against another
person to use an example, officers will not go into full-blown pursuit mode in
order to protect both the safety of the broader public as well as the driver.
The one thing that might change that calculus is if the
driver were operating in very a dangerous way such as driving into a group of pedestrians
or causing other vehicles to swerve into oncoming traffic. Such things “up the
ante” and then a pursuit may be appropriate. But lacking that, when it involves
pursuits, it will be a judgement call based on the specific circumstances in
the moment.
So when it comes to dirt bikes, officers must gauge whether the
risk of pursuing that driver outweighs the safety of that potential offender,
the officer involved, and the safety of the public because when it comes to
pursuits, it’s not uncommon for the thing to end with serious injury or worse.
With all of that in mind, we still need to put an end to
this dangerous dirt bike riding for the welfare of all involved before a
driver, bystander, or motorist is critically injured. To do that though, and do
it safely, we’ll need the help of the public as eyes and ears.
If you, being perhaps a neighbor, friend, or even landlord know
any of the drivers of these dirt bikes or something related to this issue, it
would help us to hear from you. The same goes for parents or grandparents of a
teen who may be involved - this is about protecting people before it’s about
punishment.
As you may know, the City of Bridgeton established an
untraceable Tip-411 line to allow people to share information with law
enforcement without anyone, including the police, knowing who or where a tip
came from- to use this anonymous service text “Bridgeton”, plus your tip, to
847411. It could save a life.