Armstrong said the child was being doubled at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n
He was unable to say more as the case was now before the courts.<\/p>\n
RNZ understands the child\u2019s injuries included a broken jaw and facial lacerations.<\/p>\n
Dirt bikes were a problem in Kaikohe in particular, but there were also regular incidents in Whang\u0101rei – including the death of a rider in March last year – and in Auckland, where a group of about 40 bikes sped across fields where children were playing sport on February 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big problem is the fact that a lot of these bikes are not warranted. They\u2019re not registered, they\u2019re not roadworthy. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe riders themselves are not licensed, and some of the driving behaviour is just dangerous, reckless and unruly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Senior Sergeant Clem Armstrong, of Mid North Police, says dirt bike riders are putting children in serious danger by taking them joy riding on city streets. Photo \/ Peter de Graaf, RNZ<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no consideration for members of the public and other road users, and it\u2019s just a huge safety concern for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen first-hand people who have been seriously hurt, and the absolute last thing we want is for somebody to lose their life as a result of this sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
An alarming trend involved riders taking young children as passengers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the bikes that we come across, they don\u2019t have brakes, they don\u2019t have tread on the tyres. So there\u2019s just so many risks, ultimately it will lead to more people being seriously hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Kaikohe resident, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, said dirt bikes tore past his home frequently.<\/p>\n
They created noise and nuisance and the riders put themselves at risk by pulling wheelies in traffic, but it was the danger to small children that made him \u201cdeeply, deeply anxious\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents, mothers and fathers alike, will take a little, tiny baby for a ride down the street, and the child is sitting in front of them, with no restraints,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re doing at least [50km\/h], if not more, and the child thinks it\u2019s an absolutely wonderful thing. But they have no idea what would happen if they suddenly hit something. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey would just go flying like a bag of cement and have to be scraped off the road 20m ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
That has already happened with the severely injured 3-year-old, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat still hasn\u2019t stopped them. You still see it. Those small children don\u2019t have an opportunity to say, \u2018No, this is dangerous, and I don\u2019t want to do it\u2019. And parents are giving them what they think is a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armstrong said no particular age group was involved, and many of the riders fancied themselves as experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them, in their own minds, believe they\u2019re really good riders, but a lot of the time they\u2019re actually poor. They don\u2019t have the knowledge or experience, and they haven\u2019t gone through any sort of proper learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Armstrong said police took the offending seriously and would hold people to account through the courts, with tools such as CCTV used to identify offenders.<\/p>\n
Bikes could be impounded for 28 days up to six months.<\/p>\n
Any rider signalled to stop should do so, because fleeing could lead to charges of dangerous driving or failing to stop.<\/p>\n
Consequences for those who stopped could be less severe, such as education.<\/p>\n
Armstrong said thrill-seeking was often their motivation, and many had no access to bike tracks or other places to ride so they took to streets and footpaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may think it\u2019s a fun thing to do, but it\u2019s not fun when we\u2019re dealing with seriously injured people, especially kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armstrong said the child was being doubled at the time of the crash. He was unable to say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28210,74,1070,2511,3549,12631,1069,60157,10933,30616,7973,111,43,139,69,1118,5413,675,23419,26697],"class_list":["post-275163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-3yearold","tag-after","tag-bike","tag-child","tag-crash","tag-dangers","tag-dirt","tag-graaf","tag-injured","tag-kaikohe","tag-leaves","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-peter","tag-police","tag-seriously","tag-warn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}