We have some friends that are in the Jeep Rock Crawler group and they are from the Rattan, OK area and they travel all over the US in competitions. So, they can help pass the word along that we all need to band together.

I will keep in touch. Thanks again.

 

Not to change the subject but atvs are going to become street legal in utah oct.1 2008 and i am so stoked i had to tell some one and am sighning any petitions i can to help other states become street legal. The ohv president sent me an email after i hounded him for support and he confirmed the date and everything but i do have to add a horn and speedometer blinkers are optional due to hand signals but ill add them anyways. I have a raptor 350 with full graphics kit and seat cover. It is piped and jetted with k&n filter weisco piston and a hot cam. This is going to be fun. Thanks for listenen.

 

Hey fellas,

Inregards to trail closures and privelages getting taken away. Teknikal. Awsome that Utah is giving your guys the privelage of being street legal, Please keep that inmind....it is a privelage and not a right. I myself love going fast and jumping along with 4x4 on the trails. But please keep in mind that you guys are prob. the first and will hopefully set the stage for the rest of the country. I can only hope for such things in California. We are losing trail left and right. For all others I would recommend getting involved in your local OHV volunteer group through the National Forest. Most large National Forest setting will have one. We have managed to keep many trails open and have actually gotten some reopened after many years of hard work.

Keep in on all four.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: BAIR

The First question that I have is 'Who Upset the Politicians?'

The second question is 'Why?'



These people do not create laws just for fun and they do not crank out these edicts over night. Someone had to be upset enough to light a fire under them and then there would have been months of hearings, discussions and newspaper reports etc.



SO; Where were you when all of this was going on?



The time to have stopped all of this was long ago. To undo this law will take a massive amount of work, to have prevented it a smaller amount.



IF you read through this forum, you will find all sorts of threads about lost trails and privilages around the country on both public and private land. After you sift through them the themes take on a pattern - People are abusing the space, by littering, speeding, wreckless driving damaging the land/trails, excessive noise and so on.



Basically, we are doing it to ourselves.



If you don't want to loose something,

#1 Take Care of it.

#2 Pay attention to what's going on around you, and do something about it.



Good Luck!</end quote></div>

Great post!

You are right, most of the time ATV riders bring this on themselves.....

The old saying "give someone an inch and they'll take a mile" is very relative here. I notice people seem to get board no matter how many miles of trails you make legal....

Even on my own land, I see people get tired of the same few trails and want more and more..... I guess it is human nature to want more places to explore, more trails to ride on etc.....

But I've also noticed it has to do with where you are from.........

I am originally from NJ...... as kids we had ZERO legal places to ride.... so we rode anywhere we could and hoped no to get caught.

So now that I live in NY and have 140 acres right outside my door that I can legally play on any time of the day or night .............. I don't really get board as we have at least 3 different tracks to play on and a lot of random loops.....I can be happy just doing laps and trying to break in the trails......

And when my friends from NJ come up to ride, they don't really get bored either. They too will get into racer mode and just clock off laps for hours....

However, when local people come over to ride, people who've always had a lot of different places to ride, they seem to get bored pretty quickly and are always looking for more to explore.........I always get the "are there any trails around here?" question and I pretty much have no idea......

I think it just illustrates how easily people can take things for granted. If anyone in NJ had 140 acres to ride on, people would have been lined up waiting to get in......they would have paid all day to ride on the same trails......and they would respect the rules because they know these things will go away........

 

That's really sickening. Sad thing is pretty much everywhere will be like this one day.

 

We have over 500 acres of private land to ride on but the rangers are always right outside the gates of the Private Property waiting for someone to ride off.
We are always alert to keeping trash picked up and staying on the Designated Trails and not making our own trails thru the woods. This is a Heavily Wooded Area and so beautiful to leasurely ride thru and adventure with the kids.
We hardly ever seen more that 5 other 4 wheelers during the day, unless its a Holiday weekend.
Weyerhouser is just worried about Liability Lawsuits of people riding on their land, per Weyerhouser.
We just want to the Freedom to be able to ride on the land as people have done forever.

 

That sounds like our spread in Appleton, NY although it's about 300 acres then about 500 acres of State Land which we ride on, but have to be vigilant and fast.

A few weeks ago some drunk ******* hit a car head on, was thrown 80 feet and was nearly decapitated by a guide wire on a power pole. Things like that pretty much made us all look like immature douches and thus we start back at square one... so yeah, we stay off the roads except to cross it because the 300 acre spread starts on one side ofthe road and continues on the other side.

 

I work in DC and have several friends that work for the Forest Service... I can tell you that they are very much against ATV's in principal. This is bigger than just one riding area. I am just glad I found this out now... I was negotiating on a large property in that area. Guess I'll look elsewhere now.

 

xjakknifex...
It is 100% illegal to ride on the roads anywere in NY...also if it's a marked trail (ATV or Snowmobile)it gives the land owner protection from being suied from idiots that ride like F'tards or the crazys like myself.

 

I know I barely know any of these laws an dont go to town meetings on this stuff(Aint squat places to ride by me anyway).I think this is highly unconstitutional,1st there was no public debate an its PUBLIC Land,where do these people get off w this crap.Its just amazing our government an self interest groups act like a bunch a school kids an push an run roughshod till they get there way,Its even more amazing that in the 21st century americans keep getting lied to an we keep layin down an believing it like sheepleI see a dangerous trend here both russia an germany were both there before dictators took over,read up on it an its scary it could happen to us .My mom use to say people cant think for themselves anymore,shocking when I use to laugh now shes gone 7 years an its like holy crap I see it 1st hand more an more.People should just all show up on quads an bikes an say bleep the greenies an police an start taking back the land that belongs to us. I have never seen enviros go after golf courses hmmmm.