Bikers Clogging Beltway: 'Wrong Thing To Do'

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD — A county emergency official says bikers who branded the traffic nightmare spawned by an estimated 100 motorcycle and ATV riders who brought traffic on the Capital Beltway to a halt as fun are dead wrong.

While police study video posted of the culprits in hopes of making arrests, Prince George’s County Fire Chief Marc Bashoor told WTOP he watched footage of the ride thinking, “These are more people we’ll be picking up off the street.”

The bikers turned out following a social media announcement of a “Sunday Funday” ride. Traffic was stop and go at times from the Inner Loop of the Capital Beltway in Prince George’s County to U.S. 50 and Interstate 295.

Traffic cameras showed the bikers zooming through vehicles, while some hot-dogging riders drove against the traffic flow, popped wheelies and reportedly harassed Beltway drivers.

“I’m afraid it’s going to take some of them having to go visit the morgue to identify their family member or one of their friends,” Bashoor said of the reckless behavior. “Or having to stand on the stoop and tell a mom or a dad that it was their child that died in a wreck. I’m afraid it’s going to take one of those things to happen before it really sinks in to these people that this is the wrong thing to do.”

Maryland State Police troopers from the Forestville and College Parks barracks rushed to the Beltway, but the bikers had left by the time officers arrived.

Investigators are examining a video taken by motorists and posted on YouTube in hopes of finding license tag numbers that can lead them to the bikers.

In the video, dozens of motorcycles – and a few all-terrain vehicles – can be seen cutting between vehicles on the Beltway, at times going slow, then revving their engines and speeding ahead of honking cars. One biker appears to hold his cell phone overhead as he drives to film the action behind him.

“This is terrifying,” a woman who appears to have filmed the melee can be heard saying as she and a man try to drive through the motorcycles. “What is even happening right now? This is crazy.”

And just when it appears that the two-wheeled crowd had dispersed, her video shows bikers stopping, and then turning around to ride at the oncoming traffic.

»Screenshots from YouTube video