What are New Haven police doing to prevent illegal dirt bikes, ATVs?

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Communities are cracking down on illegal ATV and dirt bike use.

In New Haven, there are several storage containers filled with bikes that were seized by the police.

“They’re not all part of one investigation,” Officer Christian Bruckhart of the New Haven Police Department, said. “This is different arrests or bikes that we seized from events, like we had over the weekend.”

On Saturday night, an apparent street takeover was captured on video.  In it, you can see bikes blocking the Whalley Avenue and Amity Road intersection.

“We don’t want to see anyone get hurt, whether it’s our officers, the public, [or] the riders themselves,” Bruckhart said.

Bruckhart told us they work closely with other police departments, from across the state and region, to address illegal ATV and dirt bike use. There are details dedicated to taking these bikes off city streets.

Bruckhart added, especially for these bigger rides, riders will come in from other states.

“Sometimes they come in on pick-up trucks, or U-Hauls,” he explained. “We can work to identify who’s driving those vehicles, who rented those vehicles.”

In New Haven, this year, police said they’ve seized 25 bikes.  So far, one was seized from this weekend’s event.

“There is a process to get them back,” Bruckhart said. “With the help of Mayor Elicker, we were able to increase fines for riding illegally.  Right now, it starts from $1,000 and it can go up from there.  It gets pretty expensive pretty quickly.”

There’s a criminal aspect to this, too. Bruckhart added you might also have to go to court.

Other communities are taking action as well.  In Waterbury on Monday, the Board of Aldermen voted to approve ordinance amendments for stricter enforcement and penalties.

“They’re off-road vehicles,” Bruckhart said.  “Keep them off the road.”

Anyone with information about the incident in New Haven is being asked to give the police a call.

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