Reading is not the only municipality in Berks County with a dirt bike problem.
Mount Penn-based Central Berks Regional police also have been getting numerous complaints about off-road motorcycles and ATVs being driven lawlessly on streets, Chief Raymond Serafin said.
Police officers themselves are taunted during patrols on Neversink Mountain.
“Dirt bikes pass them and challenge them,” Serafin said, adding that the riders egg on police so they’ll chase them, knowing officers won’t follow them onto dirt trails in their patrol cars.
It’s illegal to ride unregistered motor vehicles such as dirt bikes and ATVs on public streets. The vehicles lack lights and other safety features required of regular motorcycles. Plus, police say, the riders often lack a motorcycle license and disregard traffic control devices and rules of the road.
Early this week, police received a midday tip that a teen was fueling a dirt bike at the Turkey Hill MInit Market on Route 562 in St. Lawrence. An officer responded there Monday, and the 17-year-old fled on the bike down Prospect Street into Pennside.
As the officer pursued in a patrol vehicle, the rider lost control as he tried to turn onto Byram Street and crashed into the fence of the Antietam School District’s A Field athletic complex.
The teen, who wasn’t injured, was arrested and eventually released to a parent. Serafin said the teen doesn’t even live in or near the area where he was riding; he resides in the western Berks suburbs.
A week earlier, in Mount Penn, a teen lost control of a dirt bike in the 1900 block of Woodvale Avenue and crashed into a parked car, Serafin said.
After the initial collision, the rider was thrown into the hood of the car and rolled onto the windshield. In front of witnesses, the rider, who appeared injured, collected himself, got back on the bike and rode off, the chief said.
Inexplicably, no one called police to report the hit-and-run crash. The owner came home to find her windshield smashed.
Police obtained footage of the incident from a doorbell camera and were able to identify the rider, who was taken to the police station by his parents and will be charged as a juvenile for riding an unregistered vehicle on the street and related offenses, Serafin said.
The illegal riding is a problem in urban areas in Pennsylvania, but some cities, including Reading and Allentown, have been cracking down. Reading police for the past two years have been employing enforcement details with some success, seizing dozens of dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles from those they catch.
Source: Berkshire mont