Off-road vehicle (ATV) owners are in much the same boat as skateboarders; while there are plenty of responsible practitioners of the sport, enough yahoos exist that they color public perception of the whole tribe.
Take this little news item about an offroad group run amuck (found via Ralph Maughan’s excellent Wildlife News blog):
This official forecast, however, did little to prepare the agency for the 2007 Easter weekend when a gathering of an estimated one thousand off-road vehicle enthusiasts at Little Sahara degenerated into “near riot conditions,” according to the BLM incident report.
Over that weekend, 37 injuries, including a state Highway Patrol officer, and some 300 arrests and citations were tallied. More than 50 officers from state, federal and local agencies called to the scene tried unsuccessfully to cope with numerous sexual assaults and other attacks attributed to marauding bands of off-roaders.
Lovely stuff. I wonder if this kind of behavior will affect the ATV access battles raging in Maine and the West, where some hunters have complained that barring ATV use in roadless areas effectively denies them access to public lands.
It seems like a pretty fat-assed argument to me (anyone still walk?), but with ATV battles being fought right now, it would behoove the industry to get their shit together in a hurry.
I guess this illustrates one benefit of being a fly fisherman; our “battles” generally center more around “purists vs going-to-hell nymph rats” as opposed to riots and sexual assault . Preferable indeed. See you anywhere but the Little Sahara, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, ATV, offroad group, little sahara[/tags]
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
And some people thought Mad Max was science fiction. KW Morrow(Quote)
“some hunters have complained that barring ATV use in roadless areas effectively denies them access to public lands”
I love that argument. If the collective public wanted motorized vehicles in our roadless areas, we would have put roads there. I guess it is a little difficult to carry a deer 10 miles after you shot it, so the walking argument is a little harsh… Of course, if you wanted to you could always use a horse. razmaspaz(Quote)
One bit I left out of the original post is the role the industry is playing in its own demise. After all, in all their advertising, they show ATVs ripping up muddy trails, plowing through streams, chewing up wilderness — the very activities that are getting ATV use restricted.
It’s more than a little hypocritical, and it’s akin to the skateboard industry crying out “skateboarding isn’t a crime” when most of the marketing suggests that’s the highest use for the things. Tom Chandler(Quote)
If you want to get some good information on the state of off-road vehicles on our public lands, check out Wildlands CPR. They are Montana-based group working for sensible outdoor recreation and wildland restoration.
http://www.wildlandscpr.org
(disclaimer: I also work for them) Josh(Quote)
Haven’t been to Little Sahara since about 1976 or 77. Sounds a little bit different. Although in about 1985, I got off a three week Grand Canyon trip, then spent all night driving to San Diego to drop off some friends at the airport. In the middle of the night, somewhere out by El Centro, we crested a rise and there were seemingly hundreds of dune buggies, jeeps, motorcylces, etc. tearing around the desert in the middle of the night. It WAS Mad Max! Talk about bending the mind after three weeks on the river. Anyway, the ATV wars continue, but more stories later. Big Sky Taku(Quote)
Has anybody else noticed an increase in “sports” that involve going, but not going anywhere or for any purpose? I wonder if that is increasing. Seems like it to me. By the way, add snowmobiles and jetskis to that list.
Dave Dmotes(Quote)