Pocket bike is recycled fad — and dangerous

First, a disclaimer: Well over 30 years ago, I got on a minibike and had a ball riding it up and down a public street.

Now, an explanation: I was about 11 at the time. The bike belonged to the cousin of a good friend of mine down the street. This cousin was generally considered, even by us kids, to be trouble. (He once talked us into going door to door pretending to collect money for the YMCA — a clever ruse to get enough for a soda at the neighborhood grocery store. The plan almost worked, until my parents caught us working the neighbors across the street.)

Oh yes, and I fell off the minibike when I got going too fast and hit a curb. The damage wasn't too bad, a skinned knee. But I never had much desire to get back on after that.

It's funny how certain themes keep reappearing through history. Just as children always seem to find unique ways to shock their parents, the free market keeps re-engineering old fads to make them modern, more desirable and, sometimes, more dangerous. We never really look for thrills in new places. We just find ways to make the old places look new.

In April of 1970, the Associated Press filed a story out of Los Angeles that began, "Minibikes are causing maxiheadaches in many places, and no pain-relievers are in sight."

It continued, "The bikes are heaps of fun for the youngsters from 6 to 60 years of age who ride them. But nonriders call them a noisy nuisance. And some experts say they are unsafe and a hazard in traffic."

One glance at a photo from those days and you quickly see that the minibikes of 1970 do not look so dangerous — at least not compared to the pocket bikes of today.

I first saw one of these contraptions a few weeks ago, riding along a sidewalk near my home. Well, I didn't actually see the bike. I saw a grown man, about my age, in a fetal position going about 30 mph. For all I knew, he was gliding on air, like some sort of beer-bellied Ali Baba riding a sample swath from the neighborhood magic carpet outlet.

I'm sure even my friend's cousin, wherever he is today, would agree that it looked incredibly dangerous, not to mention dorky.

The Salt Lake County Council feels the same way. Last week, the council voted unanimously to ban the little bikes from all roads and public sidewalks within the unincorporated county. A couple of months ago, Layton city voted to do the same. No motorized vehicles under 30 inches tall may ride the streets. Pocket bikes, which emerged from Italy a few years ago, aren't registered vehicles. They don't have horns or mirrors. They don't have brakes on both tires, and they do not have lights. Riders travel up to 40 mph or faster with their feet about 6 inches from the road.