Our friend Brett Stewart at Utah OHV Advocates has been very active in protecting our OHV rights for several years, and he provided this brief update of activities he has worked on. Thanks so much Brett!
- Moab Town Council wanted to change speed limits and it was already a mess. They placed two different speed limit signs in their city on the same street, which is very confusing. I recommended one speed limit and sign for all motorized vehicles. I reached out to the city lobbyists and asked him what he’s doing; that didn’t go well. Then I talked with Moab city councilman Jason Taylor and Rep. Monson, who represents that district, and they were awesome to work with. Councilmember Jason Taylor agreed it was a good idea to remove the second signs and will pursue with City Council. Stay tuned.
- HB 49 was introduced, asking for an additional $400,000 to come out of the OHV restricted account for the DNR Rangers to give them a raise after they already received $3.8 million from our OHV account. We were able to kill that bill.
- HB 545 is a bill that had some language in it that would’ve made all of our grants in the state of Utah a reimbursement, with no upfront funding, which would’ve killed our grant program. We award about $5 million per year in grants out of the OHV account, many small government agencies and nonprofits don’t have the money to upfront it and then get reimbursed? The sponsor amended that, and we eliminated that part of the bill.
- SB 190 was labeled as a Trailer Bill, but deep into the language, it included off-highway vehicles. It would have made it so when you license your OHV and pay four years’ worth of fees in advance, you would be exempt for the life of that particular vehicle, which sounds appealing, but we believe the OHV program could’ve collapsed if everybody did it all at once. We got the sponsor willing to eliminate the OHV language, and the trailer bill passed.
- HB 444 is a very good bill to further the protection on Class D roads. We worked with the sponsor of that bill, Representative Troy Shelley, and he agreed to insert language in his bill regarding the color of OHV safety flags on specific dunes in the State. Currently, Utah law says it needs to be red or orange, and as you know, very few, including myself, fly a red or orange flag. We were successful in getting the red or orange requirement removed from the law as of May 6. Now any flag that is at least 6×9 and at least 8′ above the ground (or 18″ above helmet) are compliant, so American and club flags are ok to fly. It should be noted that on parts of Little Sahara, a Federal law still requires red or orange flags, so this does not change that requirement.
