COLUMBUS, Ohio — On a recent nice spring evening, Mark Bildsten was heading to the Short North area of Columbus for dinner with his wife, but their peaceful evening was disrupted by the sound of revving engines from a group of motorcycles and ATVs and a loud smash.
“The one individual lost control of his ATV, hit the side of a guy’s van, and then ended up underneath my truck,” Bildsten said. “Had my vehicle not been there, the potential, they could have slid up onto the sidewalk and into the people.”
Bildsten was disturbed by the incident for a number of reasons, with the danger being at the top of the list. He also worries about the city’s reputation and his own business.
Bildsten owns Bildsten Landscape Services. His employees care for many of the plants and flowers that line North High Street and other parts of the city.
He said that because of what happened to him, he won’t put his employees in danger by watering plants lining the streets late on Friday or Saturday nights. Instead, they’ll work earlier in the day.
“Our practice, we’ll change what we do because of what happened, just because I have to be concerned about the safety of people on the street and our team as well,” he said.
Carmelo Amenta had his own brush with danger. He lives in the Short North and said that these days, he can’t even walk his dog along North High Street because his pet is too scared of the noise.
“The loud revving and the dangerous actions are, like, really problematic for an area that has like a lot of pedestrian foot traffic,” he said. "It’s super dangerous, and I, myself, have had to dodge an ATV while on a run, and I’ve seen like families have to dive and dip out of the way of people just running red lights and really having no awareness of the other vehicles and people around them.”
These complaints are typical to residents who live in and around downtown, according to Lisa Defendiefer, deputy director of operations and advocacy for the Capital Crossroads and Discovery Special Improvement Districts, which represent roughly 750 downtown property owners.
“The noise certainly is an issue, particularly at all hours of the night and early morning, but what they’re really concerned about is the fact that they’re driving the wrong way on one-way streets or driving on sidewalks or running red lights, and I think at the end of the day, they think someone’s going to end up getting killed,” she said.
Defendiefer said the complaints have mounted during the past year or so, with peaks during the warmer weather.
On any given night in downtown Columbus, groups of motorcycles, mopeds and ATVs can be seen racing through the city streets, oftentimes ignoring both red lights and traffic laws.
“At the end of the day, someone is going to get hurt,” she said. “There’s no doubt about it, whether it be the person who’s the driver of the ATV or motorcycle, or they’re doing to strike someone, a pedestrian, that’s walking down the sidewalk.”
Residents have raised concerns not only to the SIDs but also to the Downtown Residents Association of Columbus and the Columbus City Council, which has responded to at least one resident with a letter describing the challenges of policing the activity.
That activity is not just centered downtown. The city has received nearly three-dozen 311 complaints, from throughout the city, since the summer of 2019. Many more who contacted 10TV said they have called the non-emergency police number.
“Probably five to one. This is the most complained-about issue that we’re talking about right now,” said Columbus Police Lt. Tim Myers, acting commander for Patrol Zone 3.
Lt. Myers said there are a number of concerns with this activity. One, many of the vehicles are not legally allowed on city streets. That includes ATVs and certain mopeds and dirt bikes. Those vehicles are often poorly constructed, held together with tape in some cases, and that’s not allowed. Others (the loud ones) are missing mufflers, which is illegal. And still more operate without license plates, another violation of the law.
“You want to talk about laws,” Lt. Myers said. “Let’s talk about the law of psychics – 150-pound moped versus 2,000-pound car. It’s not going to work out well for the person that’s on this moped.”
Lt. Myers said that this reckless operation that presents a danger to both drivers and pedestrians is the biggest fear in this situation.
On Monday, May 10, Columbus police responded to a crash on East Broad Street. It involved an SUV and an ATV, which should never have been on the city street in the first place. Lt. Myers said the incident started with a group of dirt bikes and four-wheelers traveling through Whitehall. Police there had asked for the assistance of a Columbus police chopper to help when the crash happened within Columbus city limits. The driver of the ATV went to the hospital in life-threatening condition.
“Just ATVs and mopeds, we had 22 crashes in 2019 to 2020 and about 16 crashes in the last 12 months," Lt. Myers said. “So, fewer crashes, but what we’re seeing is that the severity of the crashes is going up. Of the crashes that occurred within the last year, 88 percent of them were injury crashes.”
Cracking down on this activity is not easy, he said. Going after these drivers does not fall within Columbus police chase policy.
“Columbus Police policy does not allow us to pursue in most instances where there’s not a case of a weapon involved or a case of potential serious harm,” Lt. Myers said. “When you pursue a vehicle, you are creating risk as well, and we never want the risk of our pursuit to outweigh the danger of the subject remaining at large.”
Police and other city leaders are having to get creative. Many riders already are facing citations or arrests and there are impounded vehicles currently being held at the city impound lot.
There are plans to do more, some of which Lt. Myers said he can’t discuss publicly.
“While it may be true that we won’t potentially pursue someone right then and there, that doesn’t mean they’re getting away with it,” he said. “We have other means and methods that we can use to identify and charge them later.”
It’s not just the drivers who may face consequences. Lt. Myers said any property owner who hosts this type of activity could face civil penalties.
“What I want folks to understand, who are engaging in this kind of behavior, is, when you’re doing this, you are risking your body, you’re risking your property, and you’re potentially risking your freedom, and if you keep doing it, eventually it’s going to catch up to you,” he said.