Sure that bill might be good in some areas, but not up here. I am sick of these city folks trying to tell us what to do when they don't even know what its like to ride up here. If they keep on getting their way we won't have anywhere to ride. The cops will end up stopping ATVers for riding in the ditch and for riding on the road. They are just trying to force us to a park where you get bored in a few hours. The bill is crap!!! every bit of it. Once they get their way with one thing, they will try for another. We need to stop these anti-ATV bills while we can.

 

Please do not confuse a person's address with their knowledge of a particular environment. ALthough i currently reside in Northern, Virginia.. I grew up, still have relatives, and ride the areas in question on a semi regular basis. What MN is doing is not new... It may be considered reactionary by some... but it does fall in line with what is going on in many parts of the country.

The problem is that there are some riders that feel that rules of any kind do not apply to them. They feel if the moment moves them, they can ride on the roads when and where they want to, or up and down a person's property etc because they have "rights". Well for just a moment, think about the property owner who is the real loser here... Inconsiderate behavior is having the full effect on them. They pick up the phone and complain... the authorities hands are tied because they do not have anything that they can enforce to stop the behavior. In that case, a law such as this makes some sense if it means we can get the hooligans off the trails.

We don't like it personally, but if it means that the authorities can use it to remove the irritants, and as long as they leave the responsible riders alone, I can support that. If anything, it will make our jobs of maintaining access much easier.

There is another thread on this forum that talks about the latest arrest statistics in the state. Of the several hundred tickets issues last year, only two were valid damage arrrests... But, the lobby is quoting the entire number of arrests and painting the picture that all of the incidents were acts of hooligans...

I agree, the resulting new proposal may not be warranted.

But please, do not think because I live in a city, that we do not share the same concerns, and the same passions for our sport.

 

Sure this bill could have positive effects, but in the long run I see it all negative. Thats my opinion. All around signs are being posted for no ATV's allowed on trails. There are thousands of acres of forest and the few little ATV trails are not going to barely any damage compared to the city where all of nature is being destroyed as houses and roads are developed. They have to go after the rural residents and try to keep us from enjoying our forests. Its going to get worse if we let them keep this up. I have nothing against riders from the city, its just the city folk that try to tell me what to do on my land when they haven't even seen it or enjoyed it. If its tresspassing that your worried about, then they should just get tougher laws on that, not on ATV's.

 

I whole heartedly agree with you on that... Unfortunately, the battle you are seeing is just one small piece of a bigger war that is being waged by the envirnmental groups in general. If they had their way, the whole country would be declared a wilderness and we would all have to move to Canada or Mexico.

Right now, they use false claims, and lies to get what they want, or to whip up public opinion against all forms of motorized recreation. I guess it is easy to say that we all see each other as the evil empire. In order to be able to keep what we have, there has to be some compromises, and I think a lot of details are being worked out. They say we are all hooligans. We say they are liars... They have a lot more money at their disposal, and every bleeding heart that sends them a dime to save the redwood forests or some little previously undiscovered animal or fish just furthers their cause.

God help the poor bast@rd that tries to keep me from riding my machine on MY property. I fought the communists for 20 years.. I am not going to stand idly by and let their agents (Environmentalists and lawmakers on the take) tell me anything different. And I don't care if some little critter decides to use my 9 acres as it's home.. He is dead meat as far as I am concerned.

The only damage I see in the forests are from the environmentalists printing their lies from paper made from trees in my forests. If they went away, we could save twice as many trees as their programs would propose.

 

i dunno if i mentioned this draggin but i see you said you would never allow them to keep you from riding on your own land well the minnesota dnr tried just that what was it 2 years ago by saying that we can't drive on these certain wetlands even if it was our own land that we farm. basically if something was worked for a while and started growing cat tails or had a lil standing water we weren't supposed to drive our atv's on there even though we go through there with a tractor and plow and work it up. i mean come on how stupid they pretty well much declared most of northern minnesota this type whatever wetlands and let it go my personal belief is that the dnr here is a waste of our taxpayers money compared to states like michigan our dnr spends such a small lil percent back on the habitat and more money making up these dumba$$ laws the only thing they are good for is if someone has a complaint about tresspassing and i say let our law enforcement take care of that. we had a neusense bear on our farm where we had about 100 head of cattle at that time including the calves and that bear kept harassing our cattle and scaring them and just being a neusense so our neighbor called up the dnr and they said you don't bother it, it won't bother you and it was tearing apart garbage and tearing down bird feeders well thanx to them that bear died of lead poisoning shows a person how much they really care

 

If you would like to sign a petition that will be sent to the governor of Minnesota to help ATVers keep their trails open, please send an e-mail to jordanweir@msn.com with the title “Petition Against ATV Banning” (without “”). If you do not use that exact Email Title, I will not receive your signature. Include your first and last name, along with the state you live in (Example: Joe Schmoe – Minnesota). I started a national petition but cancelled it since it is a state government issue. Please have everyone you know that is from Minnesota and willing to support our cause sign the petition. They don't need to own an ATV, I would like names of those who support ATVers and want to keep trails open. After alot of signatures are collected, we can decide what to write to the governor about. Thanks!

 

Not sure if I'd sign anything without reading it first. I think a better approach is publishing the politician's addresses, and provide a suggested letter to be sent by each interested person. I think a thousand emails would have bigger impact than one petition with a thousand names on it.

 

ya kind of hard for me to sign anything I dont read 1st..

Draggin you get that garage up yet???? lol

 

No, I have been a little gun shy about it lately... Every time I get the money together, something bad happens and I have to use it to fix things like replace the furnace, repair hurricane damage etc..or I have a visit to the hospital that keeps me out of work.

My eldest son was out of work for 7 months the last time, and we had to use it to pay for his house payment, food and insurance... Plus my wife is going ape-you-know-what with the new grand baby (see profile for picture) so I am not sure I am ever going to get it built. We are now in the planning stages of building our retirement home, so the need for a garage here in VA has diminished.

 

ya it is hard to sign anything when i haven't seen it. Especially when this dude just joined atvconnection. who knows what he will use the signatures for.