I work in north inner-city Dublin. I live there too. E-bikes and E-scooters are a scourge because there is no enforcement of the newly created rules of the road. I don’t know too well what it is like in the rest of the city – or indeed the country – but if it is anything like this, it is a bit of an epidemic.
But worse than these quite fast electronic machines that are somewhat regulated is the growing use of unregistered scrambler bikes all over the north of the city. Whether it is in parks or in housing estates, teenagers – and 99% male teenagers – are treating their public spaces as their own personal playgrounds.
Over the last week, each working day without fail, I have witnessed two lads on scrambler bikes speeding up and down Dominic Street and Parnell St. West.
They go at speed – certainly over the speed limit for cars. They do wheelies up and down the street. They go the wrong direction up one way streets. They drive dangerously. They don’t have license plates.
I called the Gardai today to let them know that this was happening again. The response: ‘We aren’t really authorised to do anything in case they zoom off and hurt someone or themselves’.
I was baffled. How many laws are being broke?
The motorcyclists (for want of a better word) are very likely under the legal age of 17 to be operating a motor vehicle on a public road
They are breaking the speed limit in the city, whether it is 50km/hr or 30okm/hr.
They are driving dangerously, without due care and attention for other road users.
They are driving unregistered motorised vehicles with no number plates.
I understand that if I was driving a car on a main road that the Gardai would be authorised to intervene. I am pretty sure that they wouldn’t give it a second thought.
So, why is there inaction when it comes to these young lads? Is it because it is just a bit of harmless fun? I don’t think so. The fatalities continue to rise.
A man in his 20s died in a single-vehicle crash involving a scrambler bike in Blanchardstown, in May this year. In February, an elderly woman was struck by a scrambler in Killinarden Estate in a hit and run incident. Back in 2017, a 20 year old man died after he collided with his brother and lost control of his scrambler bike on waste ground in Dublin city centre. Shane Murphy, 17, of Ballymun, was killed when he tried to overtake a bus that was turning right – while riding a scrambler bike that was not designed for use on public roads – in 2022. In 2020, Dublin 10 was rocked by two scrambler accidents in just over a week. A toddler girl and a man were rushed to hospital with serious injuries after a crash between a quad bike and a scrambler in Cherry Orchard and a few days later a collision between three youths on a scrambler and a delivery driver on Decies Road saw all four rushed to hospital.
Those incidences were uncovered on the first internet search page for ‘scrambler fatalities’. A rapid internet search couldn’t give me more up to date statistics but between 2014 and 2019, 60 people were injured in collisions, and there were six fatalities, involving a quad bike or scrambler on a public road.
TD for Dublin West, Sean Crowe, raised the issue after the February fatality contradicting the response I received from the Garda at O’Connell Street Station:
“New legislation has finally been passed in the Oireachtas to seize these bikes. It’s been highly successful in Limerick City and County, but I am not aware of this rolling out locally in this policing district. Prior to this unfortunate incident, I had put a question down for the next Joint Policing Committee meeting asking what has been done locally since the new Legislation has been enacted, the amount of scramblers and mopeds seized or stopped, and how it’s being rolled out locally.”
Earlier this year, Gardaí seized 36 electric motorbikes, e-scooters and scrambler bikes in a major crackdown on vehicles suspected of being used to conduct serious criminality and terrorise communities in south and west Dublin.
Garda HQ said both the Dublin South and West Divisions were involved in a “Day of Action” in April this year. “In December 2023, Operation Meacan commenced in the DMR South and is led by the Divisional Serious Crime Unit with support from the Community Engagement Unit and Community Policing Unit based in Tallaght, and the Divisional Roads Policing Unit,” the statement said.
“The aim of Operation Meacan is to tackle the use of electric motorbikes which are being used for criminal activity including drug dealing, money laundering, transporting firearms, Drug Related Intimidation (DRI) and other serious offences.”
It is hard to square the official announcements relating to a ‘Day of Action’ and the day-to-day policing of the streets and housing estates of north inner-city Dublin. Teenagers are free to act with abandon on public roads, showing no fear of any repercussions from the authorities. Local communities can do little about it out of fear of being targeted for retribution. That should change
David Reynolds