Illegal dirt bike crackdown revving up in San Francisco
Chinatown resident Dean Chan
By Tara Campbell
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — There is a crackdown in the works on illegal dirt bikes in San Francisco.
They’re loud, they’re dangerous, and they’re racing through the streets more and more, according to people in the city’s Chinatown.
San Francisco District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter says new legislation is coming within the month to help the city stop these dirt bike takeovers.
It’s a concerning scene for residents.
“The problem is you have kids running across the street and these guys come zooming by like 40 miles an hour,” Chinatown resident Dean Chan said. “What do you expect them to do? They’re going to stop at the last minute. They’re going to do a flip over at the same time, you’re going to kill a kid.”
These dirt bikes aren’t street legal unless they’ve been modified, and are often seen riding in groups of dozens.
“Those dirt bikes don’t follow the rules,” said Edward Sui, the chairman of the Chinatown Merchants United Association. “They go through the red lights. They’re nonstop and playing tricky on the streets. They scare a lot of tourists and the elderly.”
Local business owners say they are fed up with the illegal activity.
“That’s why a lot of complaint of merchants a lot of complaining about it,” Sui said. “At least once a week they’re coming in and we’ve reported it to police.”
Supervisor Sauter says he plans to introduce legislation soon to address the citywide problem.
“We’ve been lucky that it hasn’t been more dangerous because these can spiral out of control,” Sauter said. “We’re seeing them come up under the sidewalks, come through parks and playgrounds. So it’s really something that we’re very concerned about. We’re looking at everything from increased impounding of these vehicles and of these bikes, to really trying to discourage the promotion of these events.”
He says they’ve been working closely with the police department and city attorney’s office to come up with a solution.
“We’re also looking at some of the new tools that we frankly didn’t have a year ago in terms of drones, in terms of our real-time enforcement, in terms of cameras,” Sauter said. “So we think that we should and can have a much more coordinated response to this.”
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