Residents of Meeker, Colo., ride all-terrain vehicles through their neighborhood in April. Meeker has legalized the use of ATVs on its streets.
Push to Allow All-Terrain Vehicles
on Public Roads Hits Speed Bumps
Effort to Help Riders Access Backcountry Trails Triggers Safety and Environmental
By Jim Carlton
connect
The Wall Street Journal
MEEKER, Colo.—When Katelin Cook wants to take a spin in the surrounding Rocky Mountains on her all-terrain vehicle, she just hops on the four-wheeler in her driveway and takes off—down a paved public road.
"What we'll do is wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and say, 'Let's run up and let the dogs swim around,'" Ms. Cook, 28 years old, says of the ATV jaunts she and her husband, Deloy, take to places like Howey Reservoir about 30 miles away, a journey that includes 15 miles on county roads.
The Cooks can do this because Rio Blanco County, like at least 11 other counties in Colorado and a growing number across the U.S., has legalized the use of off-road vehicles on some public roads. In recent years, ATVs have been approved on streets and roads in states including Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The trend is particularly prevalent in the West, where many rural counties have opened up hundreds of miles of public roads as part of a push by ATV enthusiasts to access backcountry trails without having to tow the vehicles there. But the movement is triggering safety and environmental concerns.
Accidents on public roads accounted for 368, or 44.7%, of 822 ATV-related deaths in the U.S. in 2007, the latest year for which complete data are available, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. According to the institute's most recent study, ATV public-road fatalities fell to 305 in 2011 from a five-year high of 377 in 2008. There were 35 deaths on all roads in 1982, according to the institute, an industry nonprofit group.
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OUT here on the salt fork of the Brazos if you behave, only the DPS will hassle.I own 2 atv and rzr. In over twelve years of riding over Baylor and Knox counties have been stopped twice both DPS They can be a bitch lecture we just park and wait them out .Our sheriff likes us on the county roads more eyes less crime.Make them LEGAL.
