WASHINGTON —聽When ATV, sportbike and motorcycle riders swarmed across the Inner Loop of the Beltway last Sunday, weaving between cars and clocking in at speeds of more than 110 mph, plenty of drivers wondered where the police were.聽
Since Sunday鈥檚 ride, Maryland State Police have said often by the time they are called out, speeding bikers are long gone, and that engaging in chases can make things more dangerous on the roads.
But that still left many motorists wondering if the highways would just be left to riders who felt they could do what they want鈥攊ncluding blocking traffic.
Maryland State Police Spokeswoman Elena Russo said on Thursday that they have been getting lots of calls and emails about bikers聽on the Inner Loop, U.S. Route 50 and Interstate 295鈥攁nd that some of the social media postings and videos are proving very helpful. Russo says they will seek to prosecute.
In Baltimore City, police had a similar problem鈥攁lthough on a smaller scale.聽鈥淭he problem we had was dirt bikes: illegal, unregistered and in many cases stolen dirt bikes,鈥� says聽TJ Smith, a spokesman for聽the Baltimore City Police Department.
It was a longstanding problem built around a bike culture, Smith says. The draw was the trick-riding that the dirt bike riders would perform as they cruised and sped through and around Druid Hill Park.
鈥淭here were people from outside of Baltimore,聽from the surrounding counties and even other states that were coming to Druid Hill Park,鈥� Smith says.
According to Smith,聽part of the problem was that spectators thought it was a聽sanctioned event by the city and the police department.
Police took a two-pronged approach to address聽the problem. The first part was聽launching an education effort to let people know that kind of riding was, in fact, illegal, Smith says. The聽second approach was more logistical.
鈥淲e literally shut down some lanes of traffic to slow traffic as it came through, which didn鈥檛 allow the dirt bike riders to get up to the speeds that they wanted to get up to,” he says.
Riders聽were no longer interested in being in the area after police聽implemented strategies to appease traffic and reduce the crowd of spectators, Smith says.
Although聽those tactics tactics worked in Baltimore City, he聽says, they likely won鈥檛 work for the Beltway, which is geared to high volume and relatively high speed traffic.
