This was in the newspaper today.

ALL ATVs must register
HARRISBURG- More than 100,000 owners of all terrain vehicles in Pennsylvania must register their machines with the state begining in october.A new law requires all owners of the four-wheeled recreational vehicles to register every two years and carry licencse plates. State law has not required owners who rode only on their own land to register. the law hopes to Deter Illegal by inrecreasing fines. a $20 registration fee will be waved for ATVs operated only on an owners property. The new law also requires ATV riders, except those riding on their own land , to carry liability insurance.

 

Buerocracy at it's best. if you can do it with cars...why not atv's???

Anything to make a dollar...that's actually sad!!!

Hope that it doesn't catch on and spread to other states

 

Actually to ride on state trails you have to have your quad registered to ride at them and it makes me made to see people from PA ride there with no registration. When you register your quad it goes to keeping state owned trails in good condition and it goes into developing new trails. So if you have an unregistered ATV and live in PA and ride at places like Marrienville, Rocky Gap, and Timberline to name a few you a getting a free ride and people like me are paying for you to ride there. Also with your quad registered it is easier to recover if it should be stolen which everyone hopes never happens to them. So before you complain know all of the facts.

2000 Yamaha Blaster

 

if you owned a snowmobile in PA for the last few years the same laws have applied. i have always registered my 2 quads because the money goes for the state trails.

 

When does law go into affect? I do carry liability insurance on our quads ....(it's agood idea) I ride on leased property with a club,so it may not apply to our machines....thanx

 

Sorry to have made my post seem so negative. as i go back and read it, and the posts after that, I realize that i need to put my foot into my mouth!!

i appologize for seeming so negative, after all, as BlueBlaster said, it will benefit our sport, so it can't be all that bad.

but i live in ohio, and mostly ride private land anyway. after talking to people, i have come to realize how lucky i am, my dad belongs to a sportsman club that has over 2,000 acres! so i now consider myself pretty lucky.

I've never riddin on public land, does anyone know of any public trails in the ohio valley area?

 

Oh, you guys forgot the good part, you now have to INSURE your quads in addition to registration. That'll be another $109 check to Progressive Insurance next year (assuming they don't raise rates because insurance is now required). I'm being told that the reason that everyone will have to register is so they can build more trails for us. If you believe that, then I own a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. They want to buy private land (or lease it) so they can build more trails on undesireable land. They WILL NOT make any more trails in the state forests. Talk about getting screwed and not getting kissed!

When you think of it, we are the only "sport" (besides snowmobiling) that pays our way in the state forests. Hikers, bicyclists, horseback riders, campers, hunters and people just driving on the forest roads don't pay a dime for their use. We ATVers pay through the nose and are denied the use of state forests. Makes you proud to be a Pennsylvanian, doesn't it?

Motorman,

The reason snowmobiles are required to have insurance is because they can ride on public roads (snowmobile roads are roads that the state is too lazy to plow in the winter). Are ATVs going to be afforded the same rights? No, the reason we are being FORCED to insure our quads is in case someone tears up a farmer's field and gets caught. The insurance then will pay for the farmer's loss. (not a bad idea, but they still won't let us ride on state forest roads).

 

Sorry for the dumb question but I've never seen a quad w/ a licensee plate. Would it hang from the back rack or something? Do the dirbikes have to also comply? I've never seen them w/ a licensee plate either. When is this effective?
Thanks
jim maloney 98 400 scrambler
http://y42.photos.yahoo.com/jim400scram

 

I do not have a problem with it if ALL of the registration money goes back into the sport. We used to pay $20 for 2 years of registration. What is another $10 a year - if it goes to getting us new places to ride. As for insurance, the next time some idiot crashes into you on a trail and trashes your machine, you will be glad he was required to carry insurance.

I think some of the snowmobile registration money was used to fund some PennDot programs, or something. I hope this is not the case with ATVs.

 

budzinsk,

You don't understand, The DCNR has NO intentions of making ANY new trails, period. Even if they buy/lease the land what's to say that the "new" trail won't be on a toxic waste dump (that sounds fun, huh)? Then they'd have to close it down and use OUR money to clean it up. The DCNR doesn't maintain the trails they have, let alone want to build new ones. So I fail to see how a couple million more of our dollars is going to help anything.

Second, How is the DCNR going to enforce the insurance policy? I see plenty of riders out there now without registration, why aren't getting fined? Do you think they'll strictly enforce the insurance law like they do the registration? You are aware that the state DOESN'T have it's own fleet of ATVs. More than likely if the DCNR does decide to enforce the law, it will take the form of harrassment at the trail heads. Now that I think about it, with the fines doubled, they have no reason NOT to harrass us.

jim,

No, they don't include bikes in this new law. The reason they don't is because bikes aren't allowed on STATE trails. Marienville and the rest of the ANF trails are on federal land, there for the state law for bikes doesn't apply there. The new law takes effect October 23.

On a happy note, It will be good to have the new licence plates. My stickers are getting pretty thread bare. The new law also expands class 1 ATVs to 800 lbs.