OHV Use Education

Brew
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Brew »

Sal wrote:To further compound the issue, riders who ride off of existing routes cannot be identified and reported because they are not required to display visible ID on their vehicles, so the reality is the whole desert is a de facto OPEN area.
Sal
What is your recommendation for a visible and viable ID for the OHV registered vehicles?

Brew
Sal
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Sal »

Thanks for asking Brew.

Since I don't ride an OHV, I would not be the person to describe or design a safe license plate holder. I know that some OHVs have a large plate in front or on the side to identify them while racing. This could be a convenient place to put a 5-digit plate. If there were 5 letters used, it would yield 11,881,376 different combinations, much more than needed for the current 2,000,000 non-street-legal OHVs ridden in Cal.

I understand that the OHMVR division may do a study on the possibilities of a mounting plate, as this could help solve a lot of problems caused by illegal riding.
Brew
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Brew »

Sal wrote:Thanks for asking Brew.
I understand that the OHMVR division may do a study on the possibilities of a mounting plate, as this could help solve a lot of problems caused by illegal riding.
The study has already been done by the DMV. A complete report on the study was presented at the Feb, 2010, OHMVR Commission meeting.
From a link for the meetings agenda ( http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/pages/1140/file ... -25-10.pdf ):

Report:
Senate Bill 742 required the DMV, in conjunction with the OHMVR Division, to report back to the legislature regarding recommendations to improve the Identification of off-highway motor vehicles. The report was completed and submitted by DMV by the required date of July 1, 2009. The Division made an effort to have DMV provide an update at the September and November meetings, but due to state budget freezes and travel restrictions, DMV has not been able to present to the OHMVR Commission until now. The report is available on the OHMVR Division website at: http://www.ohv.parks.ca.gov/

Changes in Law:
CVC 38165 (a) required DMV to redesign the green and red stickers to make the identification number the most prominent feature of the indicia and (b) to report back to the legislature after studying other ways to possibly improve the identification of off-highway vehicles.

Status:
DMV is currently producing and distributing the newly designed larger identification number indicia format as required by CVC 38165 (a).

The DMV Indicia Study Report submitted to the legislature recommended that no additional changes be made to the OHV identification at this time.

Brew
MMM
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by MMM »

Altho this thread has been hi-jacked I will respond to sal about land use in the california desert. I believe that we have around 19 million acrs of desert, give or take some. After the 1994 desert protection act over 12 million acres were designated wilderness, national parks or preserves. Another 3 million acres are designated military use only with around 1 million acres being classified as critical habitat or some other kind of restricted use lands. That means around 16 million acres of desert are off limits to all mechinzed use. (DVNP is 99% wildreness) Open riding areas in the desert ammounts to somewhere around 400,000 acres including the endangered Johnson Valley area. Of the 19 million acres of total only about 2% are listed as open. Limited use accounts for about 15% of the total desert. I frimly believe that enough of the desert is "protected" and increasing the "protection" will only create more people who will break the laws. Why? if a hiker only has to drive 30 minutes to go to a wilderness (as is the case in san diego county, from downtown san diego) and any OHV rider who truly wants the freedom to ride on real desert and has to drive over 10 hours one way to do so, people get frustrated. This is about ballance and for now, the axe has swung to far into the realm of conservation and to far away from responsible moterized recreation.

Mike
Sal
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Sal »

Brew, DMV didn't do any new testing to come up with those recommendations, that was a study that had on file. OHMVR needs to conduct or cause to be conducted, a real investigation into solving the problem of no visible ID on OHVs.

MMM. if you're going to quote data, please link to your source. For example, where did you get the figures for the number of acres in the desert? What portion is public land and what part is private..etc.

I have seen statistics that show a larger portion of the desert is open to LIMITED USE.

As a long-time desert resident I firmly believe that OHVs are destroying the ecology and ruining the outdoor experience for all others. Since riders can't be identified and chances are so slim they will be apprehended and fines are so low if they are apprehended, there is no incentive to obey the rules. It must be fun to ride across the open desert because this is what all riders of bikes and quads and jeeps like to do. They just don't worry about the impacts of their fun and the agencies responsible for protecting the land are somehow unwilling to do their jobs--to the point that in order to get them to comply with their legal directives, citizens and concerned groups must sue them.

How many hours does it take to drive from San Diego County to Johnson Valley? Ocotillo? Glamis? Certainly not 10, more like 2.

As far as the "axe" swinging--just look at the lands in the desert. Where is any conservation going on? Even the Wilderness areas are being penetrated by OHVs.

For anyone who spends anytime in the desert southwest without an OHV, it becomes obvious where the threats and damage are coming from. As far as "ballance", no one ever promised that the lands in the desert were going to be available to a destructive activity that destroys the native ecology. Why not allow recreational tree-felling in the forest?


Within
California, the Mojave Region’s 20 million acres
cover one-fifth of the state...

About 80 percent of the Mojave Desert in
California is managed by federal agencies, each of which has differing sets of missions that
often expand beyond wildlife conservation. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the
largest land manager of the region, oversees 8 million acres, or 41 percent, of the federally
owned sector. The National Park Service manages the Mojave National Preserve and Death
Valley and Joshua Tree national parks, which account for another 26 percent of the region.
The Department of Defense manages five military bases that cover about 13 percent of the
region. State Parks and Fish and Game wildlife areas account for just 0.32 percent of the
region. About 18 percent is private.





The California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan set out to protect wildlife and
sensitive habitats primarily by establishing Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC),
various wildlife habitat management areas, and large units of limited use. Enforcing grazing
and off-road vehicle restrictions was a high priority within these areas. ACECs were intended
to be specially managed areas with specific goals, such as protecting and enhancing wildlife
(BLM 1980). However, ACECs with special wildlife values are difficult to monitor and enforce
without substantially greater staff resources. Restrictions to protect these areas are often
violated by off-road vehicles and livestock intrusions, damaging habitat. And multiple uses,
such as off-road vehicle use, livestock grazing, mining, and public utilities, have eroded and
continue to erode the condition of wildlife resources in many of the ACECs that have been in
existence since their designation in 1980. Invasive plant species have also degraded the habitat
within ACECs (Aardahl 2005 pers. comm., USGAO 1991b). Without adequate conservation,
management, and enforcement resources devoted to wildlife stewardship, BLM has been
unable to protect these areas or implement adequate restoration projects and invasive species
control programs to restore ecosystems and habitat values.
The CDCA Plan is undergoing a 20-year update through amendments
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/WAP/docs ... mojave.pdf
Brew
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Brew »

Sal wrote:Brew, DMV didn't do any new testing to come up with those recommendations, that was a study that had on file. OHMVR needs to conduct or cause to be conducted, a real investigation into solving the problem of no visible ID on OHVs.
That study, released in 2009, fulfilled the requirements of SB742. Where did you find that the recommendations came from a "study that they had on file" and not new research?

Brew
Sal
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Sal »

Where did you find that the recommendations came from a "study that they had on file" and not new research?
by Brew

in my conversations with Daphne
Brew
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Brew »

Sal
Is there anything in the DMV report that you feel is not accurate (besides the conclusion)?

Brew
Sal
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by Sal »

thanks for asking Brew. Let me take some time to read it again and I'll post comments later.
MMM
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Re: OHV Use Education

Post by MMM »

sal in responce to a link, here goes. This is a list of all wilderness areas outside of national parks and perserves. http://digital-desert.com/wilderness/ On that page is a link to show a map of the same wilderness areas, note that national parks and perserves are shown in white on the map. I calcuated the ammount of lands designated as wilderness a long time ago, and no longer desire to, once again show the figgures, but they are readly available on the site I linked. I maintain that between 10 and 12 million acres of land in the California desert are off limits to OHV use. And once again I ask, is it fair for a hiker to be able to drive less than an hour to go to many wilderness areas while requiring the legal OHV rider to drive hundredes of miles to enjoy his or her sport? Please see next post for a list of wilderness areas. Also, please consider the simple fact that in total there is only about 500,000 acres of open riding areas in the desert and johnson valley most likely will be closed for military expansion.

Mike
Last edited by MMM on Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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