This is to inform you that we are having some success in our attempt to convince the Butte County Board of Supervisors (a large county in California) to allow ATV/mixed use on all county dirt/gravel roads. This has two benefits that are important to those of us who own ATV’s and like to ride them. It check mates the on going efforts to remove and limit access to thousands of miles of dirt/gravel roads that have historically been used by ATV/ OHV vehicle accesing our National Heritage properties that are within the USFS/BLM boundaries. Many of these access roads are County roads and this resolution would prevent the Feds. from limiting our access. The second benefit is that it gives ATV/OHV access to all the dirt/gravel County roads in the rural farming areas that have previously only allowed implements of animal husbandry or licensed vehicles.

We had a meeting with the Butte County Board of Supervisors two weeks ago and the subject was received optimistically and a separate meeting was called for and held last Monday, 10-13-08 with two members of the Board to brainstorm the idea with the final outcome being that a draft proposal resolution to allow ATV access on all county dirt/gravel roads will be reviewed by legal counsel and then presented at a later date in November for the full Board approval.

The hopeful passage of this resolution will rectify some inequities that have been unfairly imposed over the years by not allowing ATV/mixed use travel on rural County publicly maintained facilities. All the while the government continues to tax our use by imposing license fees, insurance and the requirement for gas tax. The millions of dollars of revenues generated by this unfair tax are never directed to the benefit of ATV riders or facilities. The growth of ATV registrations in this State and the legal use of accessible (previously illegally) county roads will allow an economic benefit to local rural communities and businesses and provide a recreational benefit to thousands of ATV/OHV users.

Sujada~ in a previous post you mentioned “ I'll see if I can get a copy of the whole ordinance and make it available”. If this Board resolution that we are working on passes, I will also post a copy should we be successful. Hopefully with copies in hand of this joint effort a cascade of ordinances/ resolutions will be forthcoming with the cooperation of the governing bodies. Common sense and of the light of day about ATV’/OHV use on all rural roads in most incidences and on some city streets, will be to the benefit and satisfaction of all.

Great news Stutz!

I haven't been able to find an electronic copy of the ordinance or the Police dept's rules, yet.
I'll try to get them to email them to me so that I can share them. Our's may seem a little too restrictive, but for operation on public streets and in traffic, I think they are probably a good compromise to prevent hot dogging which would get the ordinance repealed.

Found the ordinance on the Police Dept. Web site. Here's the link to it if you want to compare it to what you're doing out there.

ATV Leaflet

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sujada,

Thanks Sujada for your time and trouble to get this link.It will be used as an example of how it can get done.