Legislation Needed to Control Off Road Vehicles

ORV Damage in Forests  Is Bad and Getting Worse

ORVs can cause tremendous biological damage by reducing the overall above ground biomass, inhibiting the germination and emergence of seedlings, reducing water penetration, and creating a harsher environment for plants and animals to survive. ORVs are frequently cited as the key link in the spread of invasive plants that can turn pristine forest into a biologically degraded monoculture. A major concern is the reduction in biodiversity that results from ORV use.

ORV use has substantially increased, especially in the last decade.  ORVs are acceptable when they stay on their designated trails. It's when they leave the designated trails and go onto private or public lands, that are off limits, that they become a serious problem--damaging property and endangering lives. There are many conscientious ORV users, but it's the ones breaking the laws that give ORVs a bad name.   

Every state and national forest is under siege by outlaw off road motor vehicles that can now pass over almost any terrain. Use of ORVs, including all terrain vehicles (ATVs), exceeds 80 million visitor days in national forests according to David Havlick in his book “No Distant Place: Roads and Motorized Recreation on America’s Public Lands”. ORVs disrupt and compact the soil, and destroy the lichen, fungi, and algal crusts that act as natural soil stabilizers. ORVs accelerate the natural processes of water and wind erosion as vehicle tracks create channels and gullies. Their use is resulting in emissions of millions of gallons of contaminants into the soil and water of public lands each year.

Pubic lands in Maryland need protection from ORVs.  Many of these vehicles and their operators are unlicensed. Without licenses or some form of identification, it is difficult to positively identify a vehicle or its operator even when they are found to be trespassing on private land or found in restricted areas on public lands. Without positive identification, law enforcement officers can do little about these infractions even when the operators are reported.

Legislation to license both operators and ORVs is needed to protect Maryland’s pubic lands.  Penalties should be large enough to make the infraction significant to the violator. With few law enforcement officers area assigned to the task and officers assigned enormously large areas that need coverage, it’s been difficult to enforce regulations against illegal use. Citizen’s involvement is critical to reporting illegal use, and citizen’s must have some means of positively identifying of the violators.