Huge Defeat for ORV Lobby!
May 14th, 2009 Posted by Terry Weiner in off-road vehiclesLegislation to allow Off Road Vehicles (ORVs) on city streets is defeated!
May 12 2009- the California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing did not take a vote on Senator Roy Ashburn’s Senate Bill 615. When legislators calculate that their proposed legislation will not pass the challenge of committee review, they pull their bills rather than suffer a humiliating vote. Ashburn retreated after an OUTPOURING of opposition to his bill.
SB 615 would have allowed off-road vehicles on city streets in California cities of 200 square miles in size under specified circumstances. The poorly crafted bill was put on 2-year review to work out the problems with it. If passed, this legislation would have increased local ORV noise, air pollution, public safety issues and trespass in the desert city of California City and in Los Angeles and one other 200 square mile city. Local residents in California City opposed to allowing ORVs on the streets have been afraid to speak out against SB 615 for fear of retaliation. One outspoken critic of the bill has been awakened every 2 hours from midnight until 4AM by dirt bikes revving up near his house.
In days leading up to the hearing, the Transportation Committee was inundated with our calls. The Alliance for Responsible Recreation, a coalition of conservation and property owner groups, of which DPC is a member, sent a letter to the Committee in April. The legislative Analyst used parts of our letter verbatim to recommend against the bill. This is a huge defeat to the ORV lobby that will remind them that we are organized and activated to protect our private property and public lands from ORV abuse.
Congratulations and many thanks to all who wrote letters and made calls. This is a huge victory for the desert!
Terry
For the analysis of SB 615 go here.
One Response to “Huge Defeat for ORV Lobby!”
By Jim Morehouse on May 15, 2009
Allowing ORVs on city streets is about as ludicrous an idea as I’ve ever heard. They should be outlawed entirely. The people who use these machines have proven time and again that they are irresponsible and destructive. The machines themselves, even when used “responsibly” are destructive because of unregulated emissions, dust, noise, and they promote erosion and compactions of the soil, and they disturb the land such that weeds and non-native plants take residence and drive out native species. So I posit that there is no such thing as “responsible” use of these machines.