Police Ram Riders To Avoid Chase

[advrider]

On July 30, 2022, South Yorkshire Police stopped a motorcycle pursuit before it began, by terminating it with… extreme prejudice.

As you’ll see in the video below, unmarked cars rammed two motorcyclists at a gas station as they tried to escape. Their crime? Three riders had allegedly been riding on sidewalks and pedestrian walkways. Police charged one rider with driving while disqualified and with no insurance. The third suspect escaped. Police have impounded the motorcycle he was riding and have encouraged the owner to contact them.

“With motorcycle-based criminality increasing, officers are using tactical contact to stop and apprehend those who are committing crime,” says a post on the South Yorkshire Police Facebook page.

“Off road bikes are one of the biggest concerns to our communities,” said Roads Policing Inspector Clifton in that Facebook post. “We hear time and time again from our communities that the riders are ‘not causing any harm’ or ‘just having fun.’ But this isn’t the case. These riders have the capability to cause serious or fatal harm to pedestrians, and other road users, as well as damaging infrastructure and farmers’ livelihoods.”

Excessive Force?

These tactics did avoid a potentially dangerous high-speed chase as the riders prepared to flee. But was this level of force really necessary? Riding on the sidewalk does not seem like a serious enough crime to justify using unmarked police cars as potentially lethal weapons. Yet the Facebook post calls this “pre-authorized tactics.” That means police planned to do this before the riders even had a chance to flee.

Riding on pedestrian walkways is wrong. We’re not going to defend that. But if two unmarked cars came swooping in on you at a gas station, you might have the urge to flee as well. You wouldn’t know they were police. They might be trying to rob you or steal your bike, for all you know. It would be a different story with plainly marked police cars. At least then the suspects would clearly be choosing to run from the police.

Not In My Jurisdiction

These kinds of tactics wouldn’t fly in the United States. American police usually have to witness the traffic violation to take action on it. In this case, all they had was reports of the infractions and descriptions of the motorcycles and riders. Also, many American police departments have policies specifically against ramming motorcycles. We’ve all seen videos of PIT maneuvers against cars. This is not usually allowed against bikes because of the danger to the rider.

“As always we continue to clamp down on those who use the road network, in whatever vehicle that may be in to commit criminality,” said Inspector Clifton. “We will be firm, we will be strong, as this type of behavior will not be tolerated.” Being tough on actual crime is all well and good. But is endangering a couple of alleged hooligans’ lives a bit too aggressive? As always, sound off below…

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