I agree with Gary. I, too, used to wander the logging roads of the
Pacific
Northwest, to some beautiful locations. But now we seem to have a glut
of
4-wheel drive SUV's in the hands of people of all ages. These folks seem
to
believe it is their God given right to plow through these roads at
terminal
velocity (having seen how it's done on the SUV ads), colliding with
trees,
rocks, other SUVers and rolling over. The law enforcement officers that
I
deal with who have responsibility for the "back roads" have their hands
full. These idiots have no respect for the land, or other users of this
road
system. They regularly throw out trash, lighted cigarettes, and other
unmentionable materials, not to mention the junk they haul out there to
discard because they are too cheap to take it to a proper disposal site.
The manufacturers of the 4-wheel drive vehicles glorify the use of the
"back
woods" but do essentially nothing to assist in educating the
owner/drivers
of these vehicles about their responsibilities. This is why the Forest
Service is closing many of the roads that in years past we took our
children
to see the beautiful country we live in, unspoiled by urban blight. We
have
ourselves to blame, in a way, by supporting the market for 4-wheel
vehicles
that are often operated by people with little or no sense of
responsibility.
Ian Wallace, Seattle
1960 Mk 2/3 Ferret (which has never left pavement, because the back dirt
roads nearby are closed)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Pavone [SMTP:gpavone@thegrid.net]
> Sent: Monday, June 26, 2000 4:33 PM
> To: Military Vehicles List
> Subject: [MV] Voting (Rant)
>
>
> I have been enjoying the algore thread. A lot of information has been
sent
> around. I have yet to see anything about his environmental zealotry,
> though.
>
> As a MV owner who likes to drive his vehicles as they were intended,
IN
> THE
> DIRT I must remind those who are interested that Mr. Clinton and Mr.
Gore
> closed hundreds of thousands of acres of PUBLIC land to any kind of
> wheeled
> conveyance. I'm not talking about unspoiled, pristine wilderness. I'm
> talking about developed, dirt roads that actually lead one to
someplace of
> interest. All this is done, no doubt to preserve these dirt roads for
> future
> generations to not use. Where I live there exists hundreds of miles of
> former logging roads. You can actually travel these roads many miles
to
> different towns and places of great interest if you want. But not
anymore.
> The Forest Service "closed" these roads last year by putting up
beautiful,
> aesthetically pleasing steel gates across them.
>
> I grew up in the city. As soon as I could I moved away to someplace
rural
> so
> I could enjoy life and do the things I like to do without having to
drive
> four hours to get there. Now I drive five hours to get to a similar
place
> to
> do the same thing because I can no longer do it in my own
neighborhood. I
> tow my M38 with a big, ugly, diesel smoke belching, CUCV that I hope
drops
> a
> load of soot right in algore's quiche.
>
> Wow! That felt good. End of rant.
>
> Gary Pavone
> gpavone@thegrid.net
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 02 2000 - 23:51:32 PDT