Two years after Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk established a “dirt bike task force” to crack down on illegal ATV and dirt bike use, the problem appears to have subsided somewhat in the city.
But some leaders say reckless and irresponsible bike use persists in the suburbs with dangerous and even deadly consequences, and want to see statewide change to tackle the issue.
The number of calls to Allentown police about illegal dirt bikes has decreased by 36% between 2023 and 2024, according to Chief Charles Roca. Residents say they have noticed less packs of bikers on the streets, racing and weaving in and out of traffic compared to the past.
“It has definitely quieted down, usually by now with the weather warming up it’s insane,” said Jeani Garcia, an Allentown resident and operations director at the anti-violence nonprofit Promise Neighborhoods.
Off-road vehicles including dirt bikes and ATVs are not legal to ride on most public roadways in Pennsylvania, except for designated “ATV or Snowmobile Roads,” and designated state park and forest trails.
Tuerk in March 2022 held a press conference announcing a “task force” to tackle the regional problem, and included elected officials and police chiefs in Bethlehem, Whitehall and Salisbury, as well as several state representatives. The task force held three meetings, with the latest one taking place in 2023, and Tuerk said he does not foresee any meetings being scheduled in the future.
“When you have a task force, it’s to accomplish a task. We set those tasks out, and we said we were going to reduce the illegal usage of dirt bikes in our city, we are going to get the region focused on it, we are going to increase our tools to keep those bikes off the street,” Tuerk said in a recent interview. “We were successful in doing that, and now I think it’s just an ongoing effort.”
Just four months after the task force formed, it celebrated a major victory: A bill authored by former state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, would have given police across Pennsylvania the right to seize and destroy illegal ATVs and dirt bikes.
But, after revisions, the final law only granted the right to seize and destroy to city police — township and borough police cannot take that same action.
City officials attribute much of their success cracking down on illegal dirt bikes to this new law, butWhitehall Township Mayor Joe Marx said that illegal dirt bike use — which usually looks like packs of several dozen bikers driving well above the speed limit and disregarding traffic rules — is still a daily occurrence in the township that borders Allentown.
“It’s really something to see, they ride in packs of 40, 50, 60 units,” Marx said. “They defy all the odds, they’ll ride wheelies up and down MacArthur Road, race up and down, use private entities like parking lots and large shopping centers, they gather there, they’re up to all kinds of nonsense.”
Borough and township police still can issue traffic citations for illegal riding, but city police can both confiscate and impose higher fines — from $50 to $200 for a first offense and $100 to $300 to subsequent offenders.
Seizing the vehicles — which can cost upward of $10,000 — is an extremely effective deterrent, Marx said, which is why he believes that while the problem has subsided in Allentown, the same cannot be said in Whitehall, population 28,000. Chasing riders can be dangerous, so a more optimal solution to cracking down on the problem would be monitoring riders, finding where the vehicles are stored and seizing them, he said.
“Where are the perpetrators going to go? They’re going to go next door where they know we can’t take their vehicle and impound their vehicle,” Marx said. “And I think it’s a very effective deterrent, because these machines are very expensive.”
Illegal dirt bike use is more than just a nuisance to many residents — it is a serious safety risk. For example, in 2023, Lehigh County’s district attorney announced charges against a group of bikers in Upper Macungie Township who drove recklessly along I-78 and Route 100, ignoring state troopers’ lights and sirens and blocking an emergency vehicle that was transporting a wounded police officer to a local hospital. And in 2022, a motorcyclist racing over 80 miles an hour with a pack of riders on MacArthur killed a fellow biker as well as 16-year-old Mia Due, a Whitehall High School student.
Marx said he is hoping that the state legislature will update the law to allow township police to seize bikes as well.
State Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh, said he is in favor of expanding the law, but said he is not confident there is an appetite to do so in Harrisburg. Illegal dirt bike and ATV riding is on a downward trend outside of Allentown, too: the number of illegal bikes seized in Philadelphia has dropped by 58% over the last two years, according to Axios Philadelphia, and Schlossberg, who’s district covers parts of Allentown, Upper Macungie and South Whitehall Township, said he has noticed the problem improving in his district (Rep. Jeanne McNeill, who represents Whitehall Township, could not be reached for comment before a deadline).
Still, the problem does persist in some areas.
“I think it has encouraged people who are riding these bikes and ATVs to figure out ways how to do it without being caught,” Garcia said.
Further, the 2022 ATV law — even though it passed remarkably quickly — saw some controversy in the House. There was criticism on both sides of the aisle, Schlossberg recalled; some progressive Democrats expressed concern that the law would criminalize riders without adequate due process, and some Republicans thought it could threaten people’s personal freedoms.
“I would certainly love to see the law adjusted so we would better empower our township police officers; that being said, I don’t know if it’s realistic,” Schlossberg said.
Still, the legislature is continuing to look at the issue. A group of lawmakers from Philadelphia held a hearing in 2023, nine months after the 2022 law passed, to discuss further legislative changes to tackle the problem.
To Marx, change cannot come soon enough.
“We want our citizens and our guests to be safe, but resources only go so far,” Marx said. “I’m not going to tolerate this nonsense. One tragic loss of life is unacceptable, and another will be completely unacceptable.”
This story has been updated to clarify the boundaries of Rep. Mike Schlossberg’s district, which covers parts of Upper Macungie, South Whitehall and Allentown, not Emmaus as previously stated.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.
