Cities look to put the brakes on minibike craze

[CShine]

You may have heard them revving along quiet suburban streets, veering onto sidewalks, or winding through city traffic at 30 miles per hour. Some are shorter than a fire hydrant, and often the driver isn't old enough to carry a license. Known as minimotorbikes or pocket bikes, they resemble small racing bikes; others look like souped-up scooters. Relatively inexpensive (some sell for $300) and available in different styles, they've become must-haves among teens and children. But as concerns mount over their dangers and noise, they're stirring a legal crackdown in cities nationwide.

Because they're sold as toys under names like Ninja Super Racer and Mini Chopper, they don't need to be registered with states' motor vehicle departments, and riders don't need a license or a helmet. Manufacturers say the bikes are intended to be used only on private property. But that's not stopping kids from veering onto public sidewalks and roadways and into parks.

"These things have really slipped through the loopholes of most state laws," says Matthew Candland, town manager of Sykesville, Md., near Baltimore.

While technically they are toys, the mini motorbikes are being used as something between a toy and a motor vehicle and ought to be regulated, some officials say. Sykesville just modified its "scooter ordinance" to include the pocket bikes and other motorized mini-vehicles. It now requires users to obey traffic laws. "We had debated an outright ban, but if people follow the rules of the road there'll be no problem," Mr. Candland says. Candland understands the potential dangers firsthand. Driving home one night, he almost hit a scooter rider. "At the last minute I could see this kid swerving back and forth. I had to slam on my brakes."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0603/p12s01-lihc.html

[slackmaster]

1. Speaking only in regard to California

Once someone drives anything motorized on a public road it's no longer a toy, and is subject to the entire brute force of the California Vehicle Code:

670. A "vehicle" is a device by which any person or property may be
propelled, moved, or drawn upon a highway, excepting a device moved
exclusively by human power or used exclusively upon stationary rails
or tracks.

See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=veh&codebody=&hits=20 for the whole code. I can think of a dozen equipment violations pertaining to safety equipment, lights, emissions controls, etc. that those gadgets would fail, (on edit) not to mention not having paid a vehicle registration fee AND not carrying liability insurance.

You could rack up a king-hell fine for driving one on the road.

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. I got about six of them buzzing up and down my street right now

Right in the middle of Los Angeles suburbs. One nearly got run down today when he buzzed across a main road completley ignoring traffic protocols and barely missed getting bashed by a bus.

[slackmaster]

7. Have you called the LAPD?

If so, what did they tell you? If not, I think you should.

San Diego PD would be all over them. We had two young children riding dual on a motorized scooter up and down my street one day, with no helmets or any other safety equipment. I was one of several concerned people who called the SDPD. I have no tolerance for kids at risk, especially when they're making noise.

Police had a talk with their parents and it hasn't happened again. (It's a household that lets the same two young children play in the street unsupervised all the time.)

[Cronus Protagonist]

20. Naw.

None of my business. If one of them gets killed or injured, and it's going to happen, the parents are responsible. I'm not going to set myself up for scapegoating. I get enough of that here.

Click here for "HERO KERRY ZERO BUSH", "VETERAN KERRY AWOL BUSH" and other fair and balanced yet stunning, insulting, shocking, funny buttons, magnets and stickers

[shanti]

21. they're on my street too

here in sacramento. they irritate the hell out of me with their buzz!!

[henslee]

8. I was wondering when they'd crackk down. Here in L.A. , the units

are the favorites of young up and coming thug-wannabe kids.

[Beaker]

14. In chicago, they banned them on city streets and sidewalks last year...

the gangs that sell dope/crack around humboldt park had been getting very fond of them, but i haven't seen any so far this spring.

[NJCher]

12. same in Jersey

No "ifs" "ands" or "buts" about it--the heavy hand of the law comes down fast and in that particular case, I fully approve of it. These things are dangerous, not to mention highly annoying.


Cher

[MrSlayer]

2. I think they should be banned or heavily regulated.

Every jackass kid in my neighborhood has one of these things and they are extremely dangerous. They dart in and out of traffic, from in between cars and put themselves and licened drivers at risk. They should be banned from kids under driving age and should be made to follow traffic laws.

[hlthe2b]

3. Gee, I thought this was referring to motorscooters like Vespas....

My blood pressure can go back down.

[shanti]

22. no, some look like regular scooters

with a small gas tank. they can travel pretty briskly and it frightens me to think of what could happen to a kid on one of them, ESPECIALLY without a helmet, which many do.

[Massacure]

4. In my opinion,

States should regulate them so you have to be 12 and maybe have a few hours of classroom time for traffic rules. I don't really see much harm in them.

[rumguy]

6. Some trashy family in my neighborhood lets their kids race

around on those things... They are fuckin' lound, and have a high pitch that feels like it cuts right into you.

I have the absolute feeling they are Bush supporters, of the ignorant white trash lover of small engined vehicles type.

[tridim]

9. When I was a kid

(which wasn't that long ago) I had to build my own go-kart and minibike. Now you can pick one up at the auto parts store for $200. Kids these days. :P

BTW, I find it extremely lame that those new chopper minibikes have faux engines, check one out some time.. The cylinder head is made out of plastic and just covers a small 2-cycle scooter engine.

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. I was going nuts

I work at home. From 3PM to well after dark, a teen went round the block - a chainsaw engine by my window every couple of minutes. Try programming in that enviroment. It was a very temporary residence so I decided not to raise a big stink about it. A few weeks after I moved out of town, the kid was killed when his scooter collided with a car driven by a classmate.

[slackmaster]

11. Too bad nobody made a stink about it

The kid might still be alive.

I don't mean to criticize your decision personally, but I feel all adults are responsible for the safety of children even when they're being assholes.

[Unperson 309]

13. Devil's Advocate Here...

Childhood is meant to be survived... by SMART KIDS!

Now I'm taking this position tyo start debate, NOT because I necessarily support it 100%, but look at this...

We have padded, strapped, helmeted, guarded, armored our children so that they could practically survive a nuclear bomb! We are thus guaranteeing a nearly 100% chiuldhood survival rate.

Good? MMMMMaybe not...! The kid who might've killed his stupid self riding a bicycle over a cliff grows up to be the adult who does the same thing with HIS wife and kids in the car! The one who hasn't the mental acuity to *know* that you *don't* drink from that bottle with the skull and crossbones passes on his mental "dims" to his own offspring.

After all... if a kid is too dumb to know you ought to wear a helmet while on a bicycle, doesn't grasp the idea that playing with guns isn't 'survival efficient", picks up blasting caps or plays with matches, if he survives childhood due to all the protective measures we terrified parents have instituted... he might even make it all the way to the White house! And THEN what?!

Maybe Poppy ought to have given DimSon a motorized miniscooter and told him to go play on the Interstate!

309

[DS1]

18. Well, consider this...

Using your logic, isn't him taking out someone dumb enough to marry him later on a Darwinian bonus? The net result is the same, dumb kids and him are gone, plus stupid spouse.

:shrug:

[maggrwaggr]

19. yeah well when that kid runs into me and breaks my legs with one of those

goddamn things I'll kick his fucking ass.

If I can get up.

I almost got creamed by half a dozen of those fuckers just the other day, in Malibu of all places. Walking across a street and they came out of nowhere. They're big enough to fuck you up pretty bad if they hit you, and these almost did.

[leesa]

15. What's wrong with those people, don't they know they are supposed to be

driving Suburbans???

[He loved Big Brother]

16. LOL

My thoughts exactly.

[steely]

17. Glad to see it's a national issue.

I must live in a cocoon or sumpin'. They tear around my neighborhood, but not at the frequency some of the posters mention here. I was beginning to think I was an old fogey. The kids are too young, and the bikes are way too small/low.

On the otherhand, with gas prices the way they are..., and I do have to get to work....;-)

[Voltaire99]

23. No one will say it? OK, I will: rock on, kids!

This brings back fond memories of evading the cops on illegal minibikes in my wonderful, misspent youth...ah, those were the days of lawless, reckless fun, before the abyss of adult "responsibility" yawned.

Age shaking its finger at youth is one of the most dependable, and most tiresome, signs of encroaching grumphood. Let the kids drive their powered bikes and scooters; it might help some of you to get on one and rediscover what it means to live a little, too. :-)

[NJCher]

24. there are a lot of ways kids can "rock on"

without fossil fuels and endangering their safety and health and that of others.

The last thing this country needs to be doing is grooming another generation for yet another fossil-fuel dependent activity. Today you have adults who won't even lift a rake to pick up a leaf off the driveway. They go get a huge gas-powered leaf blower to blow one leaf off the driveway. I am not kidding; I see it happen all the time.

Yesterday on the radio they talked about kids being 200 and 300 pounds because they eat junk food, sit at the computer and don't go out for physical exercise anymore. Yet you think it's "rocking on" for a kid to propel himself all over the streets and sidewalks on a motorized scooter.


Cher

[slackmaster]

25. I probably would have said the same thing 25 years ago

Age shaking its finger at youth is one of the most dependable, and most tiresome, signs of encroaching grumphood.

Yes, but getting older and raising children tends to change one's attitudes about that kind of thing. After you've taken a kid with a head injury to the ER and sat for an hour waiting for CAT scan results you'll never the same again.