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Springfield Sets Stiff Fines For Illegally Operating Dirt Bikes

Chicopee Police Dept

The City Council in Springfield, Massachusetts has voted to put teeth into a crackdown on illegal dirt bike riders. 

   At its final regular meeting of the summer, the City Council voted unanimously for an ordinance to set fines for unlawfully operating dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles on city streets at $300 for each offense.

  City Councilor Orlando Ramos, the ordinance sponsor, noted three people have been killed in dirt bike crashes in Springfield in the last two years.

   "So we want to make sure we keep their safety as well as everyone around them," said Ramos.

Springfield police have taken a hard line on dirt bike operators since one threw concrete at the head of a police officer and smashed a brick through the window of a police cruiser.

          At the urging of police, the City Council voted last  month to petition the state legislature to allow police to seek a court-ordered forfeiture of confiscated dirt bikes.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.