Give Me Your OHV Keys
By Jerry
Smith
Member
of:
Grand
Mesa Jeep Club; BOD
Grand
Valley Trails Alliance -- De Beque Working Group,
Colorado
Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs – Western Land Use
United
Four Wheel Drive Associations
BlueRibbon
Coalition
Colorado
Off Highway Vehicle Coalition (COHVCO)
Utah
Shared Access Alliance (USA-ALL)
***************************************
I have never claimed to be a
prophet, but back in 1979 as President of the Montana 4x4 Association, I warned
that if our small membership didn’t make some serious noise or at least support
the few that were, their days of wheeling were numbered. They kept silent.
Now, Montana wheelers have far fewer
places to go by more than even I could foresee.
(And I was pretty pessimistic at the time)
WARNING: I’M ABOUT TO SINGE (Burn) QUITE A FEW OF YOU
WITH SOME SERIOUS THINGS TO THINK ABOUT… SO EITHER PREPARE YOURSELF OR QUIT
READING NOW!!!
“It is the only way that YOUR
access to YOUR public lands in YOUR chosen 4x4 or other mode will
continue. YOUR SUPPORT… be it YOU
doing something or YOU supporting the people who do it on YOUR behalf is the only
way this can work.”
You will hear this again at the end
of this article. Think about it.
The “Preservationists” have pushed
entire industries such as logging out of the state of Montana and most of the
western U.S. for that matter.
More and more Wilderness is being
designated (most of it should never have even been considered… much less
designated; but that’s another story.
My point is: The Preservationists have become bolder and
better funded than you can imagine. They
won’t be satisfied till the entire western U.S. is one giant Wilderness Area. Yes, it is that serious!
Some Predictions
I will predict that they won’t be
stopped there either. Once they get nearly
the whole of the west locked away, they will begin finding ways to make the
privately held eastern OHV properties close.
They’ve already begun this process in some places.
When asked why I support entities
like United Four Wheel Drive Associations and the several state associations,
it makes me want to take a bat to the questioner’s head.
Give me Your OHV keys!
If I had the power to do it, I
would take away the keys and titles to their 4x4s, ATVs, UTVs, Motor Cycles, and
other off road toys. They simply do not
deserve to participate in something they want no part of supporting in return.
Even if that were possible, these
folks would only find the time and resources to sit around the table with a
beer and bitch about the “good-ole-days”.
They won’t even send the price of one or two of those beers to support
the people who are doing all they can to stop the anti-access crowd because
after all… “what have they done for us?”
I’m sorry, but you damn fools don’t
deserve what little access you have left.
If you have been around very long and have paid any attention (unlikely
as that may seem), you may have heard some of us talking about road and trail
closures and Wilderness and National Monuments with millions of acres being closed
to motorized use.
What have YOU
done to stop this from happening???
I can understand you not wanting to
write letters, study land-use laws, read the Environmental Impact Studies, and
all the other government crap that they write for either lawyers or some other
kind of idiot. That is totally
understandable. Not many of us do.
But prying a few measly dollars
from your tight fist in
support of something you claim to “Love” is becoming such a waste of breath;
most of us would rather save the precious oxygen.
In the past 35+ years, I have
written easily over 2000 comments and letters to the BLM, USFS, Senators, and
Congressmen. What have YOU done to support ME??? Come on, what?
I’ll tell you what little you’ve
done.
I have represented YOUR
interests whether you liked it or not.
Just being a member of an organized club, state organization, and/or
United makes you worth supporting. You
pay your small amount of club dues, often a portion of which are passed up to
support your state association and/or United. Often, that piddly amount is paid under protest as being "too much".
They in turn, support you
in ways you seldom hear about because the limited resources of time and money
are so short at that level, they don’t have time or money to tell you about it. Often too, they are too humble to expound on
all the work they do on YOUR behalf.
United has lawyers and lobbyists
that contact your Senators and Congressmen and their staff. United representatives plead with them to
support YOU mostly with empty
hands. They can’t pledge monetary
support because there is no money for them to pledge.
Do you think that might be a tough
sale when the Preservationists are pumping YOUR Congressman or Senator with
campaign funding in the $millions of dollars? WHO DO
YOU THINK THEY WILL SUPPORT?
Do YOU have the time, the knowledge,
and resources to craft a congressional bill to support our sport of
4-wheeling?
Do you think that the United Four
Wheel Drive Associations or the BlueRibbon Coalition, COHVCO, USA-All, and
others like them might be in a position to do that if they had the resources to
hire the lawyers and lobbyists to write and then present the bills to the
correct people who would push them through all the committees and congressional
hoopla to make them laws?
And what about entities like the
BlueRibbon Coalition, COHVCO, USA-All, and others like them? They are the primary sources providing
lawyers to represent YOU in
court on land use issues you likely don’t even know about. Do you think that maybe those lawyers demand
something for their time?
If these same organizations had the
resources to hire the people to research and then write high quality and
meaningful arguments to the United States Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS), and other entities that manage
our public lands to keep YOUR roads, trails, and areas
accessible to YOUR motorized use, would that be a good thing?
And what if those high quality and
meaningful arguments were made available to others (including yourself)
who would reword them to make them original in nature and send them in to these
land management agencies, U.S. Congressmen, Senators, State Congressmen and
Senators, County Commissioners, and the President? Do you think that the volumes of good quality
comments might make some difference?
Would YOU take a few minutes to
even just send a copy to those entities???
My guess is; NO… you
wouldn’t.
But what if the few of us that
would, could have those comments to work with without every one of us doing the
same research. What if there were paid people compiling those comments
for the rest of us to either simply copy or to take the time to re-word to make
them original in nature? Do you think
that might make sense??
There are retired USFS and BLM
people with the expertise and knowledge of how to research the Draft Environmental
Impact Statements, Draft Resource Management Plans, Travel Management Plans,
and all the other Land Use issue documents who would do this if WE
would give them the motivation to do it… think… MONEY.
Wake up
people!!!
Things are happening that you don’t
hear about often enough. Too often, it’s
because the outcomes are too negative to speak of because the money wasn’t
there to get the job done right.
The few who fight for YOUR
access to 4x4 roads and trails do what they can with precious few monetary
resources in comparison to what the Preservationists flaunt. Most of us take money from our own pockets to
buy the office supplies, pay for the fuel to go to meetings all over the place,
even occasionally pay for a motel room to support YOU. Which one of you have even thought to thank any one of us, much less offered to compensate us for our expenses?
Most of these folks have a job to support their families
just like you do… yet they find the time to DO SOMETHING more than just
complain and whine “What do they do for us?”
Do What YOU Can Do
So, what can and should you do to
support the few who DO SOMETHING? There
are a few easy things you can do.
Ø The
next time someone asks if you would like to buy some raffle tickets to win a
“whatever”… either buy a book or two of tickets, or;
Ø Donate
the money to the entity and tell them to keep their tickets. Your donation saves them the time, cost, and
aggravation of administering a raffle… which is considerable.
Ø Take
one or more of those books of raffle tickets and sell them to someone. Surely you can find time and a way to sell just
one
book of tickets. Take them with
you when you shop and ask for some support from the places where you spend your
money.
Ø Rather than buying a six-pack, donate the
money to one of these entities. You will
get back much more than those beers will ever provide even if you don’t
personally see it. (It might save you a
DUI too)
Ø Encourage
your co-workers, friends, and neighbors to join your club, state association,
or one of the Land Use organizations.
Many of these people use the public lands without a second thought. Give them a reason to “think about it”. Get them involved.
Ø Quit
asking: “What have they done for us?” It
is wrong thinking. The real question is:
“What can I do to help or support you that do the work?” When you turn your thinking to this question,
you’ll find more things will get done.
Ø The
next time the question of club dues comes up, support a small increase. When multiplied by the number of members in
most states, the money will go a long way to supporting YOU!
Many of you have heard the old
saying: “If it is to be, it’s up to
me.” Remember, that “ME” is YOU! The ball doesn’t move till someone moves it. BE THAT SOMEONE or SUPPORT THE ONES THAT DO.
It is the only way that YOUR
access to YOUR public lands in YOUR chosen OHV will continue. YOUR SUPPORT… be it YOU
doing something or YOU supporting the people who do it on your behalf is the only
way this can work.
Think about it. If everyone who used public lands just once a year would donate $1.00/year for that right. We all know that's not happening. Someone has to make up for the several who won't do their part. BE THAT SOMEONE!
Otherwise, just send me the keys
and titles to your 4x4, ATV, UTV, Motor Cycles, and other off road toys. I will sell them and donate the money.
Then you can buy a Subaru or CRV to
crawl the Walmart Parking Lot until they “Preserve” them for whatever wonderful
name they want to call it.
Now, when you come to a fork in the road, TAKE IT!
Copyright HappyTrails4wd.com All rights reserved. 2013
