Offroading coming to a close?

[XEON]

I keep reading about parks and forest being closed to offroad vehicles.

What are your thoughts?

How can we as a group get involved?

I personally have signed many petitions and registered on a bunch of sites to try and help.

[XEON]

Here are the petitions I have signed so far. The sport would love your support sign and donate if you can!

http://www.preserveourtrails.com/
http://access-advocates.org/petition_01/


I am not affliated with any of these sites. Just trying to do whats best for our hobbies and jobs!

Please reply with others you have found and signed. I will add to list.

[MrZ71]

I keep reading about parks and forest being closed to offroad vehicles.

What are your thoughts?

How can we as a group get involved?

I personally have signed many petitions and registered on a bunch of sites to try and help.

well i think that it suxs what we should do about it is to get out there and wheel as a large group show that there is a large amount of us who want to legally get out there

[crankitdb711]

Offroading is one of those sports that hippies and liberals will continue to piss on until they don't have to see muddy trucks. Their lust for chrome and shine and their distaste for traditional outdoor sports is a result of their prada bag-buying video game-playing clueless selfish lives. As a shooter/gun owner, this is nothing new.

People loathe what they can't or don't try to understand. Their selfishness prevents them from looking at alternate activities and sports openly and instead look at them with a cautious and skeptical eye. Guns, muddy cars... they're not nearly as dangerous to others or the earth as their self-centered whorish own attitudes for more glittery shit and less grimey mechanical stuff.

The best we can do is to educate others, to lead by example. Let's use tree-savers when we can, let's not use my hugeass bumper to plow through sapplings :), let's continue to help others in need and pull them out of ditches and fix their Mercedes' for them. Let's teach others that we care about their natural parks and land more than they do, and we're all here to equally enjoy life and the world around it.

It's a catch-22... they take our legal land away, all that's left is illegal. If we wheel it, we look bad. If we don't, the sport dies. Regardless, we have to do what's right and support the off-road parks. We must generate pull-through demand and donate when we can. If you're wheeling on public land that may or may not be totally ok to legal on, pick up garbage, stay on trails, make the place better. Don't be that soccer mom throwing her latte mug out the window, be that guy who picks it up out of our mud that it washed to... and teach kids... they're our future. 1 child who gets a strong enough impression may open up his own off-road park... become a senator... who knows. Anyway, I just ranted my ass off, time for some cereal.

[ToxicTurtle]

I keep reading about parks and forest being closed to offroad vehicles.

What are your thoughts?

How can we as a group get involved?

I personally have signed many petitions and registered on a bunch of sites to try and help.

Hey, I know its been quite a while since I've been here. Got a new computer, and moved away from AOL as a browser and was having a hard time getting my favorites/bookmarks moved over and such...anyway... How could I stay away from such a question? :happydanc :-)

In very short.. Get involved.

Long:
Right now, in terms of state agencies, green groups, even fellow wheeling clubs, as a forum group, no dues, by-laws, etc.. you simply don't have the clout that a club who is a member of a larger national organization does. Also, if you were members of a larger national group, your members could be used to show the numbers of responsible people who are part of organized 4 wheeling and who are willing to pay dues to do so. Someone willing to pay yearly dues is seen as more likely to take the time to write letters, vote, etc by our elected officials.

Picking up trash in the woods and not bashing trees, etc is an absolute great way to wheel, all it takes is one dingbat though to ruin all that you did. Without getting any attention/publicity for what you're/we're doing right, it almost does no good.

I'll try to get some examples in here. The Nature Conservancy has a multi BILLION dollar treasury. They get that money through memberships, grants, donations, etc. The Sierra Club, same thing. They use their money to A) file lawsuits to keep areas closed, close areas that are open or B) simply buy properties that have allowed motorized use and shut those down.
What can we do with a few hundred dollars in dues? Well, first off, in terms of politics, our senators and reps look at letters written as one of the most important and powerful ways to let them know your viewpoints. If a group of NJ congrescritters get a couple hundred letters about opening land in NJ for OHV use, they WILL take notice. They have never even rec'd 30 at one time. Same holds true for other states as well.
Here in CT, we have two organizations now that have been formed specifically for two reasons. The first group, CTU, CT Trail Users, is a multi use group, aimed at affecting legislative issues. We even have hired a lobbyist. We have started obtaining money through grants and that is how we have been able to pay for a lobbyist. COALT, CT Open Access Land Trust was formed to obtain land for us to use for motorized recreation. We too are working with grant writers to get funding and are currently working with the state on several proposals for 4x4 roads and areas that are suitable for other forms of motorized recreation. Both of these groups have lesser dues amounts, only $20 a year, as opposed to $50+ for many New England based clubs because of the grant/donation based treasury. Together, we are actually making headway and expect to have even more land available in CT in the not so distant future. Do you see the commonalities? $$$$$ Money. It is simply needed for us as a sport to exist and keep existing. There are several forum only groups in CT and New England and they are hammering the few legal open roads out there because they have no other resources for other roads/trails. Forums are a great form of communication and organization but the loose knit format does not work well with what is necessary to keep our sport alive. That doesn't mean that the forums should be closed down... far be it... Just that the groups behind them need to take an additional step or two and get by-laws set, get some people into some "official" positions and viola, you have an official, organized and recognized club ready to be part of the team to keep our sport healthy. :wtg:

By being part of a larger group, you'll have access to a large network of people who are working to keep things open. You'll know when and where there is a meeting to attend or a need for letters to be written or a need for people to show up and demonstrate or help clean up a beach on National Public Lands Day
(Sept 29th, contact Long Island Off Road, Joe Levanti
Email: jsjalm@msn.com
Phone: 631-675-6323 and yes, you get to wheel the beach after the work is done. There is also a clean up taking place in Patchaug State Forest in CT same day ) ;-)

Also, by being part of a larger group, you'll have access to resources not only available on this forum... Like those who own large... "tracts of land..."
Access to trailrides nearly every weekend.

Crankit mentioned donating and supporting the groups that are working for our causes... Dues for EC4WDa Region D are a whopping $14 a year. That doesn't even get some gas tanks moist...:-)

I am back on the forum, but, with my position, I may not get back here everyday or even every week.
If you have any questions, email me at E4WBrill@aol.com (I still use AOL for my email as I've had it for about 15 years and don't want to change it)
I'll subscribe to this thread so that if you post here, I'll get notified.
If there is anything we/I can do to help, we will.

Talk soon,