Articles & Books about Off-highway Vehicles

We're just getting started here. The number of articles about the damage caused by OHVs is enormous. Here's what we have at this time. If you find articles that would belong here, please send the url to: info@glorietamesa.org

Wreckreation: Off Road/All-Terrain Vehicles and Their Impact on the Environment - The Impact on Wildlife, Threats to Vegetation, Pollution of Soil, Pollution of Water, Pollution of Air & Noise Pollution, Effects on Hunting, Archaeology and ORV's, Fires, Injuries from ORV's, Enforcement of Rules, Strategies for Success, Registration and Regulations, Resistance From ORV Owners, Cooperation From Within the ATV Community, ORV Management Activism...
The New Trail Wars - this is a very well written article published in Men's Journal. We add it here without the publisher's permission under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law.
Reining In OHV Abuse: Approaching the Moment of Truth - The Forest Service’s draft proposal for the mesa, representing more than a 1,200 percent increase over existing ATV usage, was considered a slap in the face.
Shattered Solitude: Off-Road Vehicles on our Public Lands - All across America, irresponsible and illegal off-road vehicle (ORV) use - driving all-terrain vehicles, four-wheelers, motorcycles, swamp buggies, jet-skis and snowmobiles off designated routes and into the back country - is threatening our national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands. Off-road vehicles pollute our air and water, degrade wildlife habitat, and carve countless miles of new roads into wildlands.
Office of Injury Prevention, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau, New Mexico Department of Health - in 2005, we provided information from one trauma center, which in one year had admitted 132 ATV injury patients at a cost of $2.4 million in emergency treatment and hospitalization. Since 25 percent of the residents of New Mexico are uninsured, we estimated that 25 percent, or $600,000, of that $2.4 million was paid for directly by the taxpayers.
Thrillcraft - The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation -Our collective natural heritage is at risk. Thirst for motorized recreation in America is creating lasting environmental impact upon our remaining wild lands. With over 100 stirring color photographs and powerful essays from policy experts, scientists, and environmental activists, Thrillcraft bears witness to the senseless destruction that is risking access to the beauty, silence, and splendor of our country’s natural world for future generations. Note: also available at Amazon.com.
We Want Trees, Not OHVs, Growing in Our National Forest -inn traditional Pawnee culture, if a person noticed a situation needing attention, it became that person’s responsibility to address it. Presently I walk in the Santa Fe National Forest nearly every day. I have been watching a cancer, disguised as “recreation,” growing in our forest for some time now, and it’s beginning to metastasize.
Glorieta/Rowe Mesa - The Sacrificial Lamb - You can still find solitude and natural beauty in many parts of the Santa Fe National Forest on Glorieta/Rowe Mesa. You can ride or hike for a day and not see another soul. You might come across grazing cattle, or deer, or elk or wild turkeys. And in late spring the wild flowers are spectacular. I used to ride my mule there, often alone. I don't anymore. I no longer feel safe or comfortable. It's no longer a pleasure.
ORV Special Edition - Some ORV problems are obvious: the visual blight on a scar red hillside, the endless noise that ruins the experience of quiet recreationists, or the litter that proliferates wherever ORVs are common. Some are less obvious: the invasive weeds spreading a long ORV trails or the increased erosion of sediments into streams.
The fire danger of off-road vehicles - Off-road driving through grass lands can cause dry vegetation to lodge under carriage of catalytic converter-equipped vehicles and ignite, with catastrophic results...
Hell on Wheels - First to appear, dirt and gravel flying from beneath their rear wheels, blue smoke streaming from their tailpipes, are a trio of goggled, helmeted "dirt bikers" wearing padded, body-length, leather-and-nylon racing outfits. As the motorcyclists climb the trail, the roar of their two-cycle engines fills the steep-sided valley.
A Blue Ribbon For Deceit - Documented impacts of ORV’s include not just air, water and noise pollution, but also soil compaction, erosion, destruction of native vegetation and the spread of noxious weeds, the crushing of small animals and their nests/dens/burrows, plus the disruption of wildlife migrations, winter ranges and denning behavior. Today, throughout the U.S., literally tens of millions of acres have been compacted, eroded, rutted, crushed, denuded and converted to weeds, all in the name of gluttonous fossil fuel-intensive play.
Sierra Club Conservation Policies: Off-Road Use of Motorized Vehicles - Off-road use of vehicles can present serious and special problems of impact on the environment and incompatibility with other users of the land. Experience has shown that off-road use of vehicles may result in one or more of the following effects ...

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