Illegal off-road motorcycle use and anti-social behaviour are in the crosshairs of the Thames Valley Police, as a newly formed off-road motorcycle team is formed.
The new department is looking to tackle people illegally using quads and motorbikes in the region - Britain’s own ‘dirt-bike dirt-bags’, if you like [link to the gta bit] - and has taken on a fleet of three Honda CRF300L road-legal enduro motorbikes as it looks to fight fire with fire.
The Thames Valley Police is England's biggest non-metropolitan force and stretches from West Berkshire in the south, taking in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire further north. The landscape across the region makes it a popular place for illegal off-road motorbikes and quads to be ridden, with wide open farmland and woodland on the doorstep of the many towns and cities.
The new team falls under the Operation Trail initiative, which looks to take officers into the more remote areas within the region, many of which would only be accessible on dirt bikes of this kind.
Speaking to the BBC about the new team, Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber said: "This is a tactic that will allow the police to get to some of those hard-to-reach areas and pursue criminals as the public expect.
"This means we can really take the fight to those criminals who perhaps think they've found a way of evading the police.”
Mr Barber also confirmed that part of the reason for creating the team was down to public reports and concerns from locals relating to anti-social behaviour and illegal bike use in more remote, un-patrolled regions.
