To the editor,
We get one every day. Sometimes two. Sometimes two at once: all terrain vehicles (aka ATVs or utility task vehicles) roaring up our road, then roaring back down. You want to run inside to flee the noise. You worry that your neighbors with vision problems might be out walking their dog (though they would definitely hear the roar coming – but not see which side of the road).
OK – it’s illegal to drive off-road vehicles on a public road (except between one part of your property and another), but no one is around to stop the joyriders. How many more of these giant, zooming bugs, flying under cover of a proposed shield, would there be if certain roads were legalized for this use?
The Vermont ATV Sportsman’s Association (VASA) is planning to bring an ordinance to Cavendish’s selectboard that would ordain that use precisely: The sportsmen want roads that connect to their private trails in Reading to be legalized for ATV/UTV travel. Currently, or at least legally, they have to hitch their vehicles to a trailer to get them to the trails. Most people who can afford a vehicle like this (ranging from $4,500 to $35,000) for recreation can afford a hitch too. But it’s inconvenient. It’s not as much fun.
For people who live along our roads (which is everyone), that is distinctly unfun. The off-road engines give off that stinky, lingering – and carcinogenic – exhaust, and there’s the hearing-damaging noise. For homeowners, the prospect is that, adjacent to legal ATV rights of way, your property value goes down by 15%.
In theory, the Fish and Wildlife Department enforces the law. They do not, however, have the personnel to monitor our roads. Enforcement of the law on off-road vehicles already is only notional; it’s not going to be better if joyriders are entitled to use some roads but not others. Why should they make the distinction? VASA members might, but maybe not always, maybe not all of them. Try stopping one of these zooming noise bombs to ask.
Some users of these vehicles have even menaced people who do not want to see our roads made off-road-conveyance byways. In the most recent meeting at which the selectboard raised this issue, VASA members called names and, afterward, placed themselves challengingly in the way of townspeople as they went to their cars. Revving the loud vehicles, they’ve circled in front of dwellings where they know opponents live. None of that is a great advertisement for how closely they’ll adhere to the terms of their ordinance if it’s passed. They ask for our goodwill, but they’re not showing a lot of it.
VASA’s trails are in Reading. Why do they need our Cavendish roads as pathways to their trails? That would make the Town of Cavendish part of their private trail system, with none of the maintenance costs. We let rules limit what can damage a larger community, and rules sometimes limit fun. Drunk driving is forbidden, and violations are punished. This isn’t about joyriders vs. killjoys; it’s about individual entitlement vs. health, safety, and community.
Sincerely,
Anna Shapiro
Cavendish, Vt.