SAY HI TO ONE OF THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN who scare the bejabbers out of you when they go screaming by at 80-miles-an-hour while you're walking or driving in South Philadelphia. They are as dependable as lightning bugs, rising from their secret garages late each afternoon to drag race on Gray Ferry Avenue in complete defiance of the police.

I saw four of these guys -- three on motorcycles and one on a four-wheeler like this one -- rev up their engines at the traffic light at 34th and Grays Ferry and pop wheelies across the intersection and all the way up the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge. All this in front of a cop stopped at the same intersection. I found out that Philadelphia police have a "don't chase" policy when it comes to knuckleheads like this -- some of them as young as 11 -- because a chase inevitably ends up with the kid crashing and the familly suing the police for their child's injury or death. What cops will do is plan traps where they can corral this kids like cowboys roping horses in a box canyon.

One time I was talking to a young fellow around 28th and Reed Sts. when a kid on a mini-bike went flying through the stop sign at 40 miles-per-hour. "You know why the cops don't chase them?" The kid answered, "Yeah, 'cause they'll get sued." I asked him if he knew anybody who had been killed on a bike and he replied. "Two. Last year." One of them was a good friend, he said. "What happened?" I asked. And without a trace of irony, the kid replied,"A trolley hit him."