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I’m a mom, so my nervous system went into high alert the first time I saw a teenage boy on a motorbike, ripping down the highway at 50 mph, suddenly yank the front wheel up off the pavement and balance on just the back wheel, gyrating dangerously from side to side as he sought to control his direction.

That was about three years ago. I told a couple of friends about the scary and dangerous things I’d witnessed. We told each other that kids do dumb things sometimes, wondering aloud how a motorcyclist would be able to steer the bike in an emergency, but it seemed like an isolated stunt.

Next I saw kids start doing these kinds of wheelies in tandem, two or three together.

Then, a few months ago, when I was driving over to the windward side at night from Waikiki, I was surrounded by a squad of about 20 teen motorcyclists, many performing wheelies and other antics at the same time. Some did wheelies while standing on the seats of their bikes. They seemed to be competing to see who could risk the most and still come out alive. It was terrifying. They were driving at high speed with very little control over their powerful vehicles. I got off the road to get out of their way.

Now the problem is gaining attention from government officials as Oahu residents ask for a crackdown. , new legislation introduced by City Council members Radiant Cordero and Matt Weyer on Nov. 7, would prohibit motorists from doing wheelies on public roadways. The bill will likely be incorporated into another piece of legislation, , which would regulate and impose new restrictions on electric bikes. That legislation, sponsored by council members Augie Tulba and Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, is moving steadily toward passage and would carry the wheelie ban along with it, according to Tam.

Old Tricks At New Speeds

In some ways this is just a new wrinkle on an old fad. Kids have been popping wheelies since banana-seat bicycles first became a craze. But the evolution and growing popularity of motorized two-wheeled vehicles of all kinds, including electric bikes, mopeds, dirt bikes and increasingly powerful motorcycles, have allowed foolish people to expand the practice in a whole new way.

And despite the obvious danger, cycling sites have even been helping popularize it. In 2014, the motorbike site, for getting the front wheel off the pavement, urging people to be sure to wear “protective clothing” against predictable accidents and injury.

Three boys riding motorcycles within Waimanalo Beach Park talked casually with me recently when I asked them if they knew anybody who was doing wheelies like that on the highway. Grinning sheepishly, they said everybody their age is doing it. They said they connect on social media, arrange a place to gather and head out on the road as a pack. They confirmed that the experience I’d had on the road heading east from Hawaii Kai is a common occurrence around Oahu.

I asked them if this was unique to Hawaii, and they said they believe it is happening nationwide. Before they roared away across the sand, they told me they’d heard that lots of people are doing it in South Florida, too.

Experts are seeing these new stunts as part of the general surge of careless driving that arose during the Covid pandemic at a time when traffic enforcement fell.

“We’ve seen an increase in reckless behavior in recent years among both motorcyclists and passenger-vehicle occupants,” said Joe Young, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Street takeovers, doing donuts and racing. Something is happening all over the country.”

This is a new fad and nobody knows how many people have died doing tricks like wheelies. Some people think it may be causing an increase in among young riders. In 2022, 6,218 motorcyclists died and 82,687 were injured, only a slight increase from 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but motorcycle deaths among older teens rose 4.5% and climbed 16% for people 21 to 24.

‘Cocktail Of Adrenaline And Testosterone’

Pete Buttigieg, U.S. secretary of transportation, that although he and other to reduce traffic fatalities generally, the number of roadway deaths — some 41,000 a year — had risen in recent years to nearly the level of gunshot deaths in America.

The wheelie trend has become a hot topic on Nextdoor.com, the neighborhood-based social media app for sharing community concerns. In the past month, Oahu residents have been engaged in an animated discussion about the phenomenon, after one motorist posted video of a teenager wearing a black T-shirt engaged in an extended series of similar tricks at high speed for about a mile while cruising along what appeared to be Kalanianaole Highway.

Some participants were sympathetic to kids but others are pretty disgusted by what they see as bad behavior that endangers other people and that, until recently, nobody seemed to be taking action to stop.

Oahu resident Nick Blank said teenagers coasting on what he called “a cocktail of adrenaline and testosterone” are doing things that make it clear that the cognitive parts of their brains have not yet fully developed.

Others were more cavalier.

“Hawaii needs organ donors,” a Kalama Valley resident retorted.