The anti-social use of motorbikes is a growing problem. Jim Nixon, RHE Global’s director of community safety, is leading on a new training course designed to optimise the response of ASB teams, housing teams and the police. He talked to Will Hatchett.

Noise from illegally ridden motorbikes can be a persistent and nagging blight, severely impacting on quality of life. And since social housing is often concentrated on estates backing onto fields or wasteland, already disadvantaged communities are most affected by this issue.

Jim Nixon reckons that when he was a neighbourhood police sergeant working in deprived parts of Walsall in the West Midlands, from 2010 to 2016, dealing with complaints about nuisance from illegally ridden motorbikes could occupy up to a fifth of the police’s time.

He recalls: “We would get calls from residents directly, but also from the council and from councillors. In areas where people were riding bikes, it would ruin residents’ lives. It would really interrupt their peace and quiet, particularly at weekends. You would get young kids, some even younger than 10, on these bikes. You would get a good range of teenagers, but also, a good number of adults as well.”

He adds: “Parents or carers were often quite supportive of their kids. In some cases, they had bought them bikes as birthday or Christmas presents or just as gifts, so that was another challenge.” Bikes stopped on the road with uninsured riders could be seized under the Traffic Act 1988. In terms of off-road use, police used powers under section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 to seize bikes. Section 59 warnings were registered on the police national computer.

A key problem was identifying the riders. But neighbourhood policing was relatively well-resourced in those days. In Walsall, there were up to nine police officers per neighbourhood team. Officers would recognise repeat offenders based on previous interactions. They knew where they lived.

Other options were available. He recalls: “We worked with the individual and the family. We would always look at doing an acceptable behaviour contract with a young person, as way of getting them engaged before they started going down the slippery slope of being arrested.”

Bikes as a crime gateway

For many young people, the illegal use of motorbikes, if not addressed, could be a gateway to a life of crime. He says: “We found that the bike problems came from a nucleus of kids that were causing just general anti-social behaviour, such as threatening people and causing criminal damage. The best way to deal with that was to nip it in the bud.”

In the days before the financial crash of 2008 and the era of austerity, some local authorities, as part of their youth services, offered facilities that allowed young people to drive and repair motorbikes and cars under controlled conditions, as an alternative to illegal behaviour. 

An example was Walsall’s lottery-funded Wheels project, Nixon recalls. In many cases, it was successful in re-focusing young people from a path that could have led them to prison. However, experience shows, he says, that some young people will ignore such projects and persist in riding bikes illegally on roads and open spaces.

Many people will say that those halcyon days are long gone. Resources allocated to neighbourhood policing have been slashed, so have local youth services which channelled the energies of young people into what Nixon calls ‘diversionary activities’.

Thanks to the internet, cheap off-road motorbikes are more available than ever. E-bikes and e-scooters, often adapted to exceed their legal speed limits, have made roads and pavements dangerous places, especially for vulnerable road users and pedestrians.

Nixon notes the new Crime and Policing Bill, which is passing through Parliament, proposes tighter laws on vehicles involved in anti-social behaviour, with greater police powers to seize and destroy vehicles, including motorbikes, without prior warning. This could be a useful addition to police powers.

Benefits of technology

He also notes that technology offers some positive benefits that were not present in the 1990s, when he first went on the beat. Drones, for example, now being adopted by many police forces, can be used to track speeding vehicles, including motorbikes, whose pursuit would be particularly dangerous. And mobile phones have found many new uses. For example, the latest version of RHE Global’s noise app allows victims of noise nuisance to capture and share video evidence with local authority EHOs and ASB and housing teams.

Nixon is a realist. He says: “We’ll never be able to eradicate this problem. The new training is designed to remind EHOs, ASB and housing teams and the police of powers that they have already, which, in some cases, may have fallen out of use. Solutions will be different in different areas. What we do know is that partnership is key to success. The training will allow participants to share good practice and innovation, so that what has been proven to work in one area can be shared.”

He is offering an additional two hours of consultation and advice for delegates, to help them find the best solution for motorbike nuisance tailored to their local circumstances, resources and needs.

For more information on the up-coming course or regarding the issue surrounding noise from motorbikes, please contact us.