There are certain things you can still count on here in New York City, despite a three-week-old statewide stay-at-home order to combat the spread of COVID-19. There's still plenty of dog crap to be dodged on city sidewalks, Mayor de Blasio will drive 12 miles into Brooklyn to get his exercise, and a nice early spring day summons dozens of dirt bikers, who scream through the streets of Manhattan.
On Sunday Gothamist's own David Cruz said he counted more than 100 of the riders in two large groups passing through his Harlem neighborhood. Many of the riders appear to be wearing masks, per the city's recommendation that anyone in public should be covering their face to prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus.
Some of the riders were also seen using the sidewalk, further endangering pedestrians.
ATVs and dirt bikes are illegal to ride in New York City, and riders have died from popping wheelies. The NYPD does not chase riders for safety reasons (officers fatally struck a dirt bike rider in 2013, and that same year, one chase ended with a police officer shooting an ATV driver).
The NYPD has not answered our questions about Sunday's ride.
As traffic has decreased dramatically, reckless driving and speeding have increased: the city's speed cameras recently logged more than double the number of usual tickets for the month of March.
In 2016, then-NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton ordered the public destruction of dozens of seized dirt bikes and ATVs. "They're not going to be too happy when we take those damn things and crush them," Bratton said, as a way of explaining why he posed in front of a camera waving a checkered flag before a police officer in a bulldozer crushed rows of the machines.
Asked at the time if the city should provide a park for dirt bike riders, Bratton replied, "Let them go out to Long Island and ride them. We have very little park space in the city as it is – to give it over to these clowns on these bikes. You want to get one? Park it someplace else where they have space to do it. The City of New York really does not have the space to set up a space for this type of activity."
One year ago, an NYPD officer was filmed crashing a just-confiscated dirt bike in Harlem.
