letter to paper
Found this in a letters to the editor, seems not all of us play well with others. fyi




""Riders don't respect land

In response to the letter from Kiri Hall, a dirt bike rider from St. David:

Let me tell you what it's like living close to an area bike and ATV riders consider "theirs." I have had the obnoxious noise from these machines at 1 a.m. as well as 5 a.m. Time of day or night matters little to these people.

I have had groups of 10 or more roar down my private road, as fast as they can go, making as much noise as they can possibly make and stirring up as much dust on my private road as possible. I am probably 50 feet from my road and the dust has been so thick you would not know there was a house there at all. When I have tried to stop them by posting signs, they steal the signs. When I have tried to stop them to ask them to respect private property, they give me the universal crude sign for - well, you know.

I have called the Sheriff's Department numerous times. Either the riders are gone by the time the deputy can get here, or they run and the deputies are unable to catch them.

The destruction these people do to my road has to be corrected and maintained by my husband. There is no government entity to come out and repair the damage they cause. It costs our money in gas, and depreciation on our equipment.

The privately owned desert these inconsiderate, uncaring, selfish people have destroyed will never come back. It is worthless now, due to the permanent damage done by these "fun-loving" people.

I would love to know how you would like dealing with these things on a constant basis. Nothing gets through to selfish inconsiderate people. I for one would dearly love to see the entire county ban your wonderful dirt bikes and ATVs, because no matter where you ride them you will do destruction of some sort.

So don't talk to me about "Why We Can't All Just Get Along"!""

 

I think she was mad[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]........The prob is she is mixing the @$$hole atv'ers with some of us that respect people and property!!!

 

here is that letter from Kiri Hall the lady is talking about LETTER

 

She's quite simply fed up. I can't say I agree with her entirely, but she does have a right to be angry. I think you in the US have the same problem we have here in Canada, primarily a lack of enforcement of existing laws, and some that need to be added or modified. Until that happens, we're going to have problems with reasonable landowners and other people we really don't want to tick off. You'll notice I didn't mention treehugging morons. The two fall into very separate categories and should stay that way.

It's going to take some degree of self-policing by riders to eliminate some of the idiots on both sides, and some compromise. If I were in her shoes, I'd be pissed off too. I'm not sure what I'd do, but I think some of the riding areas on my property would become "unattractive" to ride on. Until the laws change or are properly enforced, there's going to be problems.

 

Chilly,

I agree with your comments regarding either new laws or putting the responsibility on the community to enforce the ones we have or lose out (and I'm not talking about the community "in general" either). If law enforcement is busy enough taking care of those outside these areas......then the people who profess to love these areas so much should darn well be taking care of the folks in them. And if there doesn't seem to be enough people in our community willing to turn these people in?.....then I guess we have to make the kind of tougher laws (which involve confiscation and/or heavy fines) that increase the likelihood that these people won't return anytime soon.

It's that simple.

I'm actually starting to laugh at people who sit here and complain about the sport getting a bad rap.......yet they refuse to pressure groups like the ATVA to come down hard on the kind of butt-stupid shenanigans going on down at "safety-free zones" like Windrock (one of the most heavily ridden areas on the east coast).

These big national groups will tell you (in private, "of course") that sound and trespassing are the #1 killers in 2004.......yet do you see these guys <u>calling anybody out onto the carpet</u> for purchasing/running these pipes? How about DW? What a perfect example of how hypocritical these people have become over a job for themselves (and a lot of times in a "non-profit" no less) and/or a few more memberships/dollars in their pocket.

It really doesn't matter what the problems are....the question is: do you really have anybody out on your front lines who is willing to confront <U>whoever</U> may be causing them?

 

Wow blackballed, where you been? It's been a while.

 

We bought a Rhino when they first came out. Glad to see you're still in here keeping people informed; as this topic heading was pretty quiet before folks like yourself started using it to get the word out (If there is another atv site on the net who bothers to word their heading this way and intentionally draw people into discussions regarding it; I'm not aware of it).

Other than that, I've probably been accused of being the subject of this topic and lived up a few more times to my namesake......nothing new, really!

Take care, Rook

John

 

Well, I don't know if you've heard but here in WV they finally passed some ATV legislation. It's not the best but it does put helmets on kids, no doubling...general safety issues.

WV ATV Law

Penalties could have been more

Any parent, legal guardian or person who has actual responsibility for a child under eighteen years of age who knows or should have known the child is operating or is a passenger on an all-terrain vehicle without a helmet as required by the provisions of section one of this article is guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, upon conviction, be subject to the following penalties:
(1) For a first offense, a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars or not more than ten hours of community service, or both;
(2) For a second offense, a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or not more than twenty hours of community service, or both;
(3) For a third or subsequent offense, a fine of not less than two hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or not more than one hundred hours of community service, or both.