The Baltimore Sun's Brent Jones examines the scourage and the problems police have given that their next to impossible to chase. Police have tried everything from fliers urging people to turn in others with dirt bikes to following packs around with the helicopter.
Starting Oct. 1, it's illegal for gas station owners to sell to dirt bike riders and the stations must post the laws prohibiting dirt bikes at their pumps. But I bet most teens buy their gas in cans and don't brink the bikes to the pumps, fearing they could easily get confiscated. And police tell me that some gas station owners take kickbacks for selling to dirt bike riders.
The two accidents were horrific. In one, police say a dirt bike went through a red light on South Monroe Street and broadsided a car being driven along West Pratt Street. Police said a passenger on the dirt bike hid the bike and then returned with friends to beat the driver of the car, sending him to Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Just a few days earlier, police said a motorcyclist was killed when he hit a pole while swerving to avoid hitting a dirt bike, whose driver was carrying an infant.
The problem, which has been with the city for years, is garnering many new complaints but fixing it will not be easy.