HARRISBURG, Pa. — "I think it's a pretty big danger, more to themselves than the people driving," Shawn Murray said.
Murray moved to downtown Harrisburg about a year ago and since he's seen his fair share of dirt bikes on city streets.
"Sometimes I'll be driving and they'll come flying by and I'm wondering where are the cops at," he asked.
Lt. Kyle Gautsch with Harrisburg Police says the cops are around, but this is a hard problem to solve.
"It is a challenge; I'm not going to deny that it's a challenge to stop them," he explained. "We're not going to jeopardize the safety of the people on the motorcycle, dirt bikes. We're not going to jeopardize the safety of the people in the motor vehicles surrounding them as well."
Illegal dirt bikes are frequently seen in the Allison Hill neighborhood and on Front, Second and Cameron Streets.
Gautsch says this has been a problem for years-and he says their strategy remains the same: they'll use video footage and hope to identify the drivers of these dirt bikes.
"Our biggest concern is having an individual that really doesn't know how to operate these bikes on the roadway amongst other motor vehicles," he said.
That concern was a reality for Murray when he saw a man riding a dirt bike near Second Street.
"He fell off, he was doing a wheelie and the wheel kicked out and he went on the ground and got right up and kept going like it was nothing," he recalled.
While Lt. Gautsch says there hasn't been any fatal dirt bike crashes as of late-- their main priority remains keeping residents safe.
He’s asking people in Harrisburg who see a dirt bike on the street—give Harrisburg police a call.