Earthtalk

It is my belief that a significant number of off road vehicle owners are selfish, arrogant, and aggressively antisocial. These people assume that their so-called freedoms take precedent over all others, even when they destroy resources held in common by us all.  As a geologist, I have spent a substantial amount of time conducting field research in the wilderness and near-wilderness over the years. During the past two decades this work required that I drive thousands of miles of jeep trails in  four-wheel drive vehicles during which time I have encountered the full range of ORV owners from ranchers herding cattle to yahoos shredding hillsides for the fun of it.  There are legitimate, work-related uses for ORV’s and, in my experience, such users are overwhelmingly courteous and law-abiding on the trails. With 36 million ORV owners, it is clear that regulations are needed, including requiring adequate noise abatement devices.  It is the estimated 15 to 20 percent of the users who are hell-bent on tearing up public lands who need to be punished and the federal government must provide the resources to do so.