A Connecticut city is considering a ban on pocket bikes.
Those are the mini-motorcycles that are a hot trend among kids and adults.
Safety concerns and a lack of regulations has New Britain taking action.
* by News Channel 8's Kent Pierce
Whether you're in a city or the suburbs, you've probably seen somebody ride down your street on what looks like a motorcycle shrunk down to clown size.
But these are not toys. They are motor vehicles.
They're just so tiny that some in New Britain think they're a hazard to everyone on the road.
Alderwoman Silvia Cruz has seen a lot on the streets of New Britain but now she's worried about what she can't see.
Cruz says, "You can bump them and you don't even see them. No matter how tall they are, the vehicles are very little."
They're called pocket bikes and not much more than a foot tall. They're expensive toys, popular with adults and kids but cities like New Britain are taking a long look at them.
Chief William Sencio, New Britain Police Dept., says,"I think the real issue is that these vehicles were not designed to be operated on the roadway and share the roadway with cars, trucks and buses."
Right now there's all kinds of state laws about full-size motorcycles, you've got to have them registered, you've got to have a drivers license, but when you get to these little pocket bikes, for most of them the engine is less than 50 cc's, which means you don't have to register them, but you do need a driver's license.
Sencio says, "Yes, you have to have a driver's license, you have to obey all the rules of the road, you can still be charged with red light violations, stop sign violations."
But if Cruz gets her way, you won't ride them at all in New Britain.
Cruz says, "We're proposing to get them removed from the streets."
Banned from the streets is okay with Dave MacQuarrie. He runs New Haven Powerports. The bikes he sells are too powerful to be street legal anyway.
David MacQuarrie, New Haven Powersports, says,"Some of the stuff I see in the paper is people who don't have driver's licenses and they should be arrested because they are a danger to themselves and other people."
Police are working all the time. New Haven cops stopped this rider right in downtown but Cruz says we still need more.
Cruz says, "It's now when we need action, before anything tragic happens. I'd hate to see somebody dying because we didn't prevent the problem."
Her proposal is a 90 dollar fine for anyone riding a pocket bike on public property.
A city council subcommittee will hold a public hearing on the issue Thursday of next week.
Right now in Connecticut the rule is bikes engines have to be less than 50 cubic centimeters, and every rider has to have a driver's license.
