I'm an advocate of street legal ATV and UTV riding. Over 20 states have street legal laws in some form or another. That's a good thing. We ATV enthusiasts need to cherish and protect our privilege of street riding.

Those states that have not passed street legal ATV riding have perceptions of how awful ATVs are. This is an erroneous perception, but it only takes a few idiots to spoil the whole effort. Here is an article of what I'm talking about. Every incident reported was perpetrated by an "idiot" on an ATV.

ATVs, Dirt Bikes Becoming Menace to City Streets, Police ? Law Officer

Remember 50 years ago when we may have had "pre-conceived notions" about motorcycles and motorcyclists? Motorcyclists were "all gang members." My parents sure did, thus I was not allowed on or near a motorcycle. I think the Honda 50 changed all that in the early 60s. "You meet the nicest people on a Honda".

We gotta work together to "legitimize" ATV riding. You meet the nicest people on an ATV. Self policing helps.

David

 

If you look on YouTube there are plenty of videos of ATVs and dirt bikes doing wheelies down streets in major cities. It's mostly dirt bikes and it happens in Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and I don't know where else, but the videos are there and you don't have to look hard to find them. It happens all the time and as long as these young punks keep it up it's going to be very hard to convince people that we should be able to ride the streets legally.

 

Its nice to think about but its just never going to happen nationwide. Small towns near huge trail systems like the Pauite and Hatfield and McCoy and out in Moab, yeah definitely. A few states do allow them, utvs seem to be more widely accepted as they are bigger, have seat belts and a rollcage and are easier to see. In a collision with a full-size automobile, you're must less likely to get injured if you're in a utv vs an atv. I really wouldn't want to ride long distances on pavement anyway just for the fun of it. I can see if you live close to some local trails, being able to ride a short distance to get to them instead of hauling there would be much more convenient. That is the case where I live, a relatively short drive on pavement gets you to some nice trails or at least nice for being so close. If you have to go too far to get there, you'll use so much fuel driving there and back in some atvs that you have to limit your riding once you get there or bring extra fuel with. More advantages for the utvs with the bigger fuel capacity. Or if you live way outside of town and every road has gravel or dirt on it, then its a bit more fun. If that's where you live, its likely you probably can get by with some road riding anyway, whether its legal or not. Remote non-paved roads with little traffic might have more atvs on them than cars anyway.

 

Where I live in Maine, we get lots of bicyclists. What sucks, most of the roads don't have bicycle lanes, so they ride in the middle of the road. Makes it a real PITA , especially for truck drivers. So, after paying tax to register all of my ATV's, but not being able to ride on the road, it sucks. If you look in the court news, every week, it's full of people getting fined for not having a sticker on their ATV, driving on the road, or speeding on a friggin trail. What in hell are the cops doing , hiding in the woods with radar guns, while drug dealers are pushing heroin to the kiddies in school.

 

Getting the atv riders is easy money and less dangerous than druggies!

 

There's a speed limit on trails?

 

Seems silly to me too but I guess on some systems there is. On a trail, it would seem you ride as fast as the trail would allow. On a tight trail, you can't go very fast without hitting something. At one riding park I have been at, I was following a RZR 1000 XP, a machine capable of 80 mph but about 15-20 mph was all it could manage due to the trail being so narrow for a machine that size. Not to mention many up and down hills that would send you flying if you went too fast. About 20-25 mph was about what I was going when nobody else was around. A bit faster on the flatter sections but there weren't too many of those. I think 35 mph was top speed for the day on the trail. There was a short pavement ride from one set of trails to another of about 2 miles or so. I think I hit 50 on that, that's about as fast as I wanted to go.

 

It was a nice late winter day here at 60F. There is no snow or ice on the roads. I saw maybe 15 "adventure" type motorcycles ride down our road. I thought they might be a club or something. They were riding responsibly and looked like they were enjoying maybe the first tour of the season. My ATV might be a little louder, but not much. The speed limit on our road is 25 mph.

And several bicycle groups road by also.

Why can't we ATV riders organize a similar ride on the dirt road to Buck Snort bar and grill? That would have been very enjoyable today. I wonder if the motorcycle group didn't end up there.

David

 

It really just comes down to being considerate. Not many people want loud machines ripping by their homes at full throttle, spinning up donuts, dust, and gravel, tearing up their roads, and sometimes lawns. But ride by at a reasonable and safe speed, and most folks around here will just wave. Anybody can crank up full throttle on a decent road, it takes more control to hold your speed down.

Around here, any road with no lines painted is fair game. You can also legally use a marked highway to get from one secondary road to another, within a certain distance, riding the berm as much as possible.

How about the Sand Reeper? The idea of a street legal utv has always sounded good to me. Well, street legal in 49 states, I think Maine won't allow it. I'd keep a set of street radials mounted just for running around town and light backroad cruisin'. Have yet to see one anywhere, except the web. Metal body, signals, mirrors, windshield wiper, horn, etc. They've evolved a bit since I first looked. 812cc for the Reeper, 1100cc for the Reeper Sport and Reeper4 (four seat). Even a 2wd model now, hmm. Base price seems to be about $14k, I know I saw a locking diff, but have yet to see if there's a low range.

 

I never heard of the Reeper so I took a look. They're all assembled in New Mexico. Oreion Motors | ATV's, Quads and UTV Vehicles