By PEACE IJIYERA
AT around 9pm most weekends, Morwell resident Dave Lethborg says you can almost guarantee you’ll hear the sound of motorbikes howling through Well Street, Robert St and Junier St.
Mr Lethborg, who lives on Robert St, has had enough, and wants to see the hooning stop.
The perpetrators, mostly teenagers and young kids, ride up and down the streets with no helmets on motorbikes and pit bikes that are unregistered; posing a threat to themselves and others in the community.
In an effort to put a stop to their shenanigans, Mr Lethborg has tried involving the police; all to no avail.
“Each time I ring the police about it, they don’t show up, and they say there’s nothing that we can do about it,” he said.
Frustrated, he pointed out the double standards the police seem to have, pulling up drivers for having a tail light out, but letting kids get away with riding unregistered motorbikes and pit bikes illegally. In Victoria, rules around riding dirt bikes state that to be ridden on public land, bikes must be registered.
Mr Lethborg is worried these kids lack awareness and risk perception. He’s not being a Kevin about the matter, in fact Mr Lethborg is all for children playing in the streets and is an avid motorbike lover himself – he just wants them to be safe.
“If some kids were out the front here playing ball or something like that, I don’t worry about that, that’s not what I’m worried about,” he said.
“One of these pit bikes came through here, had a teenager riding it. On the front was this little girl, probably four or five-years-of-age, sitting on top of the fuel tank, and they’re getting on, riding through (at a) high speed.”
Citing an example of a young man who died after being involved in a trail bike incident on Hourigan Road in 2011, Mr Lethborg is urging kids to remember that they are not invincible.
Just last year, another young man died after a dirt bike ride through Moe resulted in tragedy.
“It’s just dangerous, someone is going to die again,” a concerned Mr Lethborg said.
As well as having concern for the safety of kids, Mr Lethborg is mainly troubled by the state of his wife’s health.
His whole world nearly came crashing down last December when his wife Tracey suffered two heart attacks and a stroke. In what could only be a miracle, Tracey was resuscitated twice and is on the road to recovery.
Having recently just returned home from hospital, rest is her best medicine. However the sound of the motorbikes “screaming” interrupts her sleep, directly affecting her health.
“At night after dark, on the weekends here, this place absolutely lights up with the screaming of these motorbikes, and she’s trying to sleep, so this is the biggest issue,” Mr Lethborg said. Some nights the howling can be heard as late as 11pm.
Mr Lethborg is calling for police patrols in the area, but also for parents to keep their kids in check.
“The parents should be held responsible”.
“Get the police down here with the police motorbikes, which they’ve done before and pull them up. Lets impound these, they’re not supposed to be on the road.”
