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Allowing ATVs on unpaved roads a bad new law

As bad laws go, this one isn't the worst we've seen, but it deserves to be singled out for its flagrant disregard for the public's safety.

In about five weeks, a law will take effect that allows all-terrain vehicles - those noisy, wide, three- and four-wheeled motorbikes you see mostly young people racing in fields and alongside roads - to be driven on unpaved roads where the posted speed limit is 35 mph or less.

Granted, it will be permitted only during the day, and the operator of the ATV must be a licensed driver or under the supervision of a licensed driver, but there are no other safety requirements, such as wearing a helmet or equipping the ATV with mirrors or turn signals.

That means an 8-year-old could zip up and down a lime rock or dirt road at 35 mph as long as his or her licensed 16-year-old sibling was there to watch him or her take the risk.

Such a scenario is both ludicrous and scary, and the lawmaker who ushered this bill through the Legislature, Greg Evers, a Republican from Okaloosa County, should be embarrassed for jeopardizing the safety of motorists on ATVs and in automobiles.

Unpaved roads are dangerous already. Putting ATVs, and their usually inexperienced operators, on them only increases the likelihood of accidents.

And police blotters up and down the Nature Coast carry their share of reports of accidents involving ATVs. Too often, the results are serious injuries or death, as was the case in Hernando County two weeks ago when a 13-year-old was killed after being thrown from an ATV driven by her 12-year-old cousin.

Law enforcement officers in this region are lobbying their county commissions to exercise their option to opt out of the state law before it takes effect Oct. 1. Hernando County has scheduled a public hearing on the matter for Sept. 26. Pasco County appears poised to follow suit, and Citrus County is reviewing the law.

It is no wonder sheriffs oppose it. Enforcing the law will be very difficult. There just aren't very many deputies cruising unpaved roads, and it would be a misuse of valuable resources for the sheriff to assign them to patrol rural areas to monitor kids on ATVs.

This law was quietly - and improperly - lumped in with a long list of others in a Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles bill. An issue that increases the safety risk of children should have been debated on the House floor. Of course, if reasonable people had been given the opportunity to examine this proposal, its absurdity would have been easily recognized.

This law is the equivalent of telling your kids to go play in the street. It should not be on the books at all. At a minimum, it should be amended to require counties to opt in, instead of forcing them to take the initiative of opting out.

After county commissioners hold their public hearings on this matter, they should vote immediately to exercise the provision that allows them to override this ill-advised decree from Tallahassee.

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[Last modified August 31, 2006, 06:24:25]