Dirt bikes and crabs: It must be summer

Signs of summer in Baltimore: crabs, cookouts and dirt bikes. Yes, as the weather begins to warm, Baltimore police are already preparing for the deluge of dirt bike riders that will emerge on the streets of certain city neighborhoods.

The crackdown by police on the illegal dirt bikes is sure to dredge up the annual and now ubiquitous debate about whether the riders are a safety hazard and nuisance or a part of the city’s cultural heritage that needs to be preserved.

We’re among those who are glad to know the police are once again deploying a task force to rein in the bikes, which have been illegal since 1980.

We don’t want to see the over-criminalization of the riders, who are in many cases teenage boys enthralled by the recklessness and thrill of zooming down city streets and swarming in and out of cars. But the reality is that they pose safety and nuisance issues that should be addressed. Not to mention that what they are doing is illegal.

The free-spirited riding and disregard for the law have led to accidents, including one that killed a 24-year-old woman and another that put a 5-year-old boy in the hospital.

Not only are riders a danger to others, but they put themselves at risk as well. In January, an 18-year-old from Baltimore fell off a dirt bike and died while riding along Hollins Ferry Road in Lansdowne.

Residents complain about the noise from the bikes and say they are fearful when they swarm around their cars or stop traffic so packs of riders can ride through red lights.

The riders certainly have gotten lots of attention outside of the city. The story of the renegade dirt bike rider makes for great Hollywood entertainment, as proven by the documentary “12 O’Clock Boys” and a movie in the works with the same name produced by Jada Pinkett Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. We appreciate a good film like anyone else, but the reality is that these projects also glorify behavior that wreaks havoc on the streets. Call it the Fast and Furious of the dirt bike world.

To those who want to romanticize the riders, we would point out that nobody has come up with a plausible way for them to ride legally without posing a danger. The idea of a dirt bike track has popped up over the years, but questions about insurance and the cost of building such a track have proved a big obstacle. There are also issues with how riders would get their bikes to a track.

Moreover, we’re not totally convinced teenagers will find the same excitement riding in a dirt park as they do bending the rules and going rogue on city streets. It will take a big buy-in from the dirt bike community.

But if the law isn’t going to stop the riders, we’re certainly willing to give the idea another spin. If the city can build a race track through downtown like it did for the Grand Prix (the inaugural race was in Sept. 2011), Baltimore certainly can build a dirt bike park. Perhaps the city could find a private business to foot the bill just as it did then.

But with high crime rates and myriad other social and economic problems in Baltimore, we don’t count on that becoming a top priority at City Hall anytime soon.

In the meantime, the police are taking the right approach: confiscating bikes, sometimes with the help of a police helicopter to locate them, and targeting those who allow riders to gas up, which is against the law and punishable with a fine up to $1,000. The police have seized more than 400 dirt bikes since 2016.

More aggressive tactics are used when riders have been connected to criminal activity, including confiscating illegal handguns and arrests. A few years ago, Dawayne Davis, otherwise known as Wheelie Wayne, was charged with 15 counts for operating a chop shop. The “godfather of the 12 O’Clock Boys” eventually agreed to serve 48 hours of community service.

It’s all fun for the riders, but the safety of the residents of the city should be the priority.