In US, dirtbike dealers battle brazen ‘wheelie boys’ in thefts
By
Lynh Bui
FOR SOMEONE who has sold dirt bikes for 20 years, Mike Johnston though the had his shop sufficiently fortified against break-ins: bars on windows, a video surveillance system and concrete barriers to deter a car crashing through the entrance.
But it turned out those precautions were not enough in the spring when thieves smashed into Ellicott City Motorsports in Maryland and made off with five dirt bikes - twice.
“The problem just keeps getting worse and worse ,” said Johnston, whose store was struck two times in seven days. “It really is an epidemic.”
Johnston is one of several recently burgled motor bike dealers along the East Coast who say theft sat their shops have ramped up in recent years. This is happening as swarms of illegal dirt bikes and allterrain vehicles regularly flood public roads and pop wheelies in chaotic hordes, chasing socialmedia stardom.
In the Washington, D.C., region last week, nearly a hundred dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles choked traffic in downtown Washington and the National Harbor.
Video posted on Twitter shows joyriders weaving around cars, driving against traffic and ignoring police attempts to pull them over. Police say the vehicles used in such spectacles are often stolen, from private owners and shops.
Dealership thefts are becoming so common, shop owners from Pennsylvania to Virginia have formed an informal network to alert each other of break-ins and share lookouts for suspected thieves.
“We immediately call and share what was going on with the break-ins ,” said Johnston, who talked to owners of five different dealerships burgled in10 days in late June. “We’re all trying to avoid the same problem.”
In May, thieves smashed the window of a Connecticut shop and stole US $30,000 worth of bikes in about two minutes, the third break-in at the store in six months, according to local news reports.
A Pennsylvania shop on June 25 lost US$ 60,000 worth of bikes after someone crashed a van through the front door, “entered the store with precision” and stole seven motorcycle sand scooters, according to local police.
And the week before, two men rammed a passenger van into the entrance of Powersports East in Delaware four times before busting through the entrance, said Pete Clark in, the store’ s finance manager.
“Watching it is extremely violent ,” Clark in said of the heist captured on surveillance cameras .“When you walk through that door everyday for work and then see someone drive a van through the door, it’s unsettling.”
Through the rubble of shattered glass, and in under four minutes, the thieves carried out four dirt bikes and loaded them into the van stripped of its passenger seats, Clarkin said.
The Delaware store in six years has had 20 bikes stolen in 10 burglaries, Clarkin said. The most recent break-in caused US$ 300,000 in damage.
The vehicles are appealing because they are not connected to licence plates that can be traced, said Lt. Craig Wine gardner of Prince George’s Police.
“They don’t require keys, and you can kick-start and ride away,” Winegardner said. “They’re easy to pickup and putin a pickup truck.”