Last month, as many as 12 ivory towers, worth over USD 172 million, were set alight in Kenya to send a message to illegal ivory traders and put a curb on poaching of elephants and rhinoceros. The folks at New York Police Department (NYPD) did something similar to a bunch of unlicensed dirt bikes and ATVs on a LIVE Facebook video to send a message to illegal street stunting hooligans in the city. Well, they didn’t burn the vehicles but crushed them under a bulldozer.
There is a glaring difference between the two incidents, though – no lives were harmed in the making of the machines so ruthlessly turned to trash by the folks at NYPD. The act has received a mixed response from motoring enthusiasts and global media. While some appreciated the measures taken by the police department, others suggested that authorities could have confiscated and sold the vehicles in other states instead of ruining thousands of dollars worth of motorcycles.
As motoring journalists and before anything, true petrol heads, what do we think about the measures taken by the department?
Well, we completely supported the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s decision to burn ivory to send a strong message. Ivory, however, doesn’t have any real use except for ornamental purposes. More importantly, any activities involving the trade of the said item are decidedly illegal. Such, however, isn’t the case with motorcycles. The hooligans suffered their losses as soon as the motorcycles were confiscated from them. Now whether the authorities decide to make something of it, or indulge in an act of brazen bravado is entirely upto them. For us, the crushing of useful metal which took thousands of man hours in getting produced amounts to latter. Selling the motorcycles could have been a possible solution.
We might be wrong in our assertion, though. Do have a look at the video below, and do let us know your thoughts on whether what the NYPD did was a good or bad deed in your opinion. We’ll await your comments.