Quad bikes: MPs warned of "menace on our streets"

Bradford MP Judith Cummins said quad bikes should be kept as tools for farms, not as 'toys' on the streets

Quad bike riders should be forced to wear helmets on public highways because their "reckless and unsafe use on our streets is a menace", an MP has said.

Bradford South MP Judith Cummins said quad bikes "are tools, not toys".

She said her Quad Bikes Bill would "make the law consistent with similar vehicles" and allow police to remove "problem quads" from the streets.

The Bill is listed for a second reading on 6 May, but is unlikely to become law due to a lack of parliamentary time.

However, Ms Cummins said it would reduce the number of off-road quads on the streets by making wearing of helmets compulsory, requiring immobilisers to be installed and making registration of all quad bikes compulsory.

"The constant loud, piercing drone of quad bikes is an all too familiar sound in many of our towns and cities," the Labour MP told the Commons.

She said West Yorkshire Police data showed there had been more than 10,000 reports of anti-social use of quads and bikes in West Yorkshire in 2021, which was "a shocking 42% rise on the previous year".

In 2016 farmers in Doncaster said they were having to dig ditches around land to prevent quad bikes damaging crops

She added that according to the National Farmers' Union (NFU) about 1,100 quad bikes a year were stolen from farms, costing farmers more than £3m a year.

In 2016, farmers in Doncaster dug ditches to stop rogue quad bikers riding over their land and ruining crops.

Ms Cummins said: "While these vehicles have important and legitimate uses in agriculture and related industries, they are tools, not toys and their careless, reckless and unsafe use on our streets is a menace and my constituents have had enough.

"These are vehicles designed for herding animals in fields, not tearing up Tarmac in our towns and cities."