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ATV enthusiasts feel squeeze |
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outlandish AWF Admin 
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By Tim Grace, Enterprise staff writer Richard Monteiro of Middleboro loves to get outside with his family for a little wind-in-the-face fun on their all-terrain-vehicles. But, more and more frequently, there's a cul-de-sac and a new row of houses or a shopping mall where there used to be land open for riding. At state parks, signs at the trail head banning ATVs are almost three times as common as they were a decade ago. "A lot of the trails we used to ride are closed. It's illegal to ride almost everywhere," a clearly frustrated Monteiro, 41, said last week. Suburban sprawl and tightening regulations at state parks are reducing the number of trails open to the state's estimated 100,000 ATV owners, forcing them to cram onto shrinking riding areas or take their chances out of bounds and hope police turn a blind eye. But neighbors fed up with noise, environmentalists worried about tire-torn landscapes and safety groups hoping to save the lives of young riders on oversized machines are pressing for tighter ATV restrictions at every level of government. Locally, noise and trespassing complaints are driving police to crack down on illegal ATV use. The four-wheeled motorbikes which can reach speeds up to 80 mph depending on the model, aren't allowed in any public parks in southeastern Massachusetts. Riding on private property is allowed with the owner's consent but liability concerns have cut into the number of landowners willing to give their permission. Environmental Police Sgt. Timothy Clancy is assigned to the Brockton area. He says he's seen an explosion in ATV popularity in recent years, particularly among children. "It's a big problem," Clancy said. "They're everywhere. Every kid's got one. We call them gas-powered baby sitters." In warmer weather, Clancy said checking out ATV complaints can eat up most of his day. Fines for trespassing, riding an unregistered machine, riding without a helmet and other ATV infractions range from $30-$250. "Riding under the influence is an arrestable offense," Clancy said. Sick of the hassles, some local ATV owners have all but given up on local riding. Monteiro admits he's ridden near home in places he technically shouldn't. But his weekend riding trips to Maine have gotten more and more frequent. "We're doing a lot of our riding up here," he said. Middleboro Police Chief Gary Russell is in a similar situation. Russell, who's been riding with his wife and adult children for more than a decade, said "there are no good places" to ride ATVs close to home. Mark Bettencourt, a salesman at Bettencourt's Honda Suzuki and a Middleboro resident, has been riding ATVs since Honda invented the class in the early 1970s. "If I had known that bringing the commuter rail to Middleboro would mean they'd be building residential on every piece of land above swamp grade, I would have voted against it," he said. "Where can you ride?" But there are plenty of riders who ignore the law, trusting to patchy enforcement and their own mobility to avoid fines. "The minute school lets out, they're out there," said Martha, a Bridgewater woman who asked that her name not be published. "They cut through the back of my yard to get to the woods on the other side." Martha said she doesn't mind as long as the riders are few and they don't rev their motors. But not all riders are courteous. "If your windows are open, the noise can really get to you," she said. There are state parks in the central and western parts of the state that allow ATVs. But almost three quarters of the state parks that were open to ATVs a decade ago have shut off access, in part because of the damage they can do to trail systems that are too narrow and fragile to handle the machines. Gary Briere, a spokesman for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, said there were at least a dozen state parks open to ATVs and motorcycles in the mid-1990s. In 1996, Griere said the state went through a "rigorous process" of evaluating the capacity of state parks to accommodate various recreational activities, motorized vehicles included. Park visitors were surveyed and the result was the closure of all but four parks to ATVs. Pointing to the recent closure of Savoy State Forest, Griere said even the most conscientious riders can do serious environmental damage. "What can happen is a trail gets compacted and there are run-off issues and you wind up with a mud puddle," Griere said. Rather than risk getting stuck in the mud, riders go off the trail, compacting more ground and, eventually, widening the puddle. "If they keep braiding the trail, eventually you've got a huge new wetland," Briere said. DCR works with riding groups to keep some parks open. Frank Frey, president of the New England Trail Riders Association, (http://www.netra.org) said motorcycle and ATV groups spend hundreds of hours maintaining trails in state forests. Frey said he worries that closing off access will actually do more harm to the environment than keeping existing trails open. "My fear is that you're going to have people riding out on areas that are environmentally sensitive," he said. Driven from local woods and state parks, some ATV riders have taken to the streets with tragic results. In 2002, a 22-year-old Dorchester man was killed riding an ATV on Oak Hill Way in Brockton when his head struck a utility pole. In Taunton, Jonathan Welch, 22, of Norton was seriously hurt in August when his ATV crashed into a car at the Myles Standish Industrial Park during illegal drag races. Accidents are limited to the street. According to a report conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 11 people died in ATV accidents between 2000 and 2003 in Massachusetts. Brockton mother and registered nurse Carolyn Anderson went to Washington last week hoping to save families from a pain she knows all to well. In August, her life was shattered when her 14-year-old son James Anderson died riding an ATV. On a trip to New Hampshire with family friends, James strapped on a helmet and went for his first ride on an ATV. He died when the ATV smashed into a trail-side tree. "I knew nothing about ATVs when this happened. I'd never seen one," Anderson said. "I never had heard that a single child had been hurt or killed." After the crash, Anderson co-founded a group for families of children killed in ATV accidents and is pushing for federal regulations she hopes will keep children off "adult-sized" ATVs. "We need to make families aware of how dangerous adult-sized ATVs are. Thousands of kids have died on them. These aren't toys." Anderson's group, Concerned Families for ATV safety (http://www.atvsafetynet.org), met with Congressional leaders and appeared before the Consumer Product Safety Commission last week, lobbying for a change in rules that would bar retailers from knowingly selling ATVs with engines larger than 70 cubic centimeters for use by riders younger than 16. "The death and injury rates have gone up every year ... Why haven't they acted," she asked. According to a CPSC report, 5,791 people were killed in ATV accidents nationally between 1982 and 2003. Of those, 32 percent were children younger than 16. Injuries far outstrip deaths with 125,500 injuries being traced to ATV accidents in 2003 alone. Riders 16 and younger suffered 31 percent of those injuries. According to state law, no one under age 10 is allowed to operate any recreation vehicle, including ATVs. But age restrictions are rarely enforced. David Veracka owns Brockton Cycle Center, a motorcycle and ATV dealership on Route 28. On its Web site, the dealership advertises ATVs for children as young as 6. Asked why his dealership promotes sales to riders younger than state law allows, Veracka said "that's a difficult one to explain. "It's just an old law on the books that quite frankly has never been enforced," he said. Veracka said every ATV customer is encouraged to take a rider safety course. Each ATV sold comes with a $100 voucher toward rider training. "We try to motivate them to get safety training," Veracka said. Brockton Cycle Center isn't alone in pitching ATVs to young riders. Several national advertising campaigns from the major manufacturers depict young riders on ATVs under slogans like Honda's "Families Can Come Out and Play." Norman Collins owns a Middleboro racetrack that hosts ATV and motorcycle races. Collins said children as young as 4-years-old can safely ride an ATV with the right protective gear, training and supervision. "They get out of their car seats, take the pacifiers out of their mouths" and get on an ATV. Riders wear helmets, chest protectors, shin guards and other gear to prevent injuries. "Everything you can put on that kid to make him safe, that's what he should have," Collins said. He emphasized the importance of training and supervision as well. "They need somebody who's got a little bit of brains to tell them what they should do, not what they can't do." Under those conditions, Collins said ATV injuries are fairly rare. "We have more kids get hurt on BMX (bicycles) than we do on the quads."
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