DC Highway Committee to consider changes to ATV/UTV ordinance
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Editor’s Note: LeAnn R. Ralph previously served as Supervisor 2 on the Otter Creek Town Board and now serves as chair.
by LeAnn R.Ralph
MENOMONIE — Although the Dunn County Highway Committee seemed poised to consider whether all county highways should be open to ATV/UTVs, the committee is now considering ways to enhance public safety.
There are some changes to the existing All Terrain Vehicle ordinance that the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department would like to see to enhance public safety as well as enhance enforcement of the ordinance, said Nick Lange, Dunn County corporation counsel, at the Dunn County Highway Committee’s April 12 meeting.
Lange said in his opinion, it would be prudent to have more risk management and more enhanced public safety measures in the ordinance, such as speeding penalties and enforcing the rules of the road, in view of the vehicle traffic on county highways.
Changes to the ordinance would include the ability to request that a judge issue an injunctive court order that a certain individual is not allowed to operate an ATV/UTV on a county highway if that person has been causing problems with excessive speeding or by causing accidents, Lange said.
An injunctive order would likely not be needed, but the ability to issue the order would be there if there were repeated problems, he said.
Insurance requirements also would be part of the ordinance update, Lange said.
If people cause an accident with an ATV/UTV, they should have a way to compensate someone for injury or for property damage, he said.
Lange noted that he is currently tinkering with the language about ATV/UTV operators assuming risk for operating on the county highways.
All county roads
The first five pages of the ordinance are being reviewed and updated for language so there is more enhanced enforcement, and the county highways, or portions of highways, that are currently open are included toward the end of the ordinance, Lange said.
The very last page of the proposed ordinance update would open all Dunn County highways to ATV/UTV traffic with the exception of county Highway B from Highway 12/29 in Menomonie to state Highway 40 just south of Colfax, he said.
Brian Johnson, county board supervisor from Colfax and a member of the highway committee, asked about the use of turn signals by ATV/UTVs on county highway routes already approved.
The current ordinance does not require turn signals, but turn signals are included in the proposed draft of the updated ordinance, Lange said.
Turn signals
State law does not require turn signals on ATV/UTVs, and very few counties require turn signals, Lange said.
Lange said he had asked Travis Mayer, a patrol sergeant with the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department, to review the proposed ordinance, and Sgt. Mayer thought the proposed changes were good.
Dunn County might be the only one or would be one of a handful of the 72 counties in Wisconsin to require turn signals, Lange said.
Requiring turn signals would be one of the safety enhancements to the ordinance since ATV/UTVs are being operated on county roads that have been designated as routes as well as being operated on county roads that have not been designated, Lange said, noting that the several people who spoke during public comments had been concerned about ATV/UTV traffic on county roads that are not open, on town roads that are not open, and that they were concerned opening all county roads would increase the problems experienced on town roads.
“[ATV/UTVs] are moving in,” he said.
Requiring turn signals would be a good idea because the ATV/UTVs are competing for space and movement on roads where there are vehicles that are bigger and heavier, Lange said.
The county already has problems with ATV/UTVs operating on highways that are not open, and there are plenty of accidents already without the ATV/UTVs, he said.
Penalties
Lange said he had tried in the draft ordinance to strike a balance with the penalties included in state statue.
Riding ATV/UTVs is supposed to be recreational, and some of them are used for other purposes such as agriculture and some for snow plowing, he said.
The forfeitures in the proposed ordinance allow any law enforcement officer to issue a citation, and the district attorney can then turn it into a county ordinance violation so the amounts paid for fines would stay in Dunn County, Lange said.
The proposed ordinance includes penalties included in Wisconsin state statute 23.33(13) and 346.02(11).
In the proposed updated ordinance, a fine of $50 also would be imposed for ATV/UTVs not operating on the extreme right side on paved portions of the roadway and for ATV/UTVs operating on the shoulder, or in the ditch or right-of-way unless yielding the right-of-way; for ATV/UTVs not being operated single file; and for operating on any route outside the hours of operation, which are between the times of one hour before sunrise and one hour after sunset.
Dusk to dawn is not a precise way to measure hours of operation, Lange said.
At any time of the year, anyone can look up the time of sunrise or sunset, and it is easy to calculate one hour before sunrise or one hour after sunset, he said.
Penalties for exceeding a posted or fixed speed limit in violation of (4)(b) of the ordinance, which sets the speed limit on all ATV/UTV routes at 35 mph or the posted speed limit, whichever is lower, at $25 for being 1 to 10 mph over the posted or fixed speed limit; $50 for 11 to 15 miles per hour over; $75 for 16 to 19 mph over; $100 for 20 to 24 mph over and $125 for 25 miles per hour over.
Any violation of the ordinance for which no forfeiture is specified shall result in a forfeiture of $75 for each offense, according to the proposed updated draft of the ordinance.
Age limits
Kids who are 12 or younger are too young to be operating on roads, and 12 to 16 year olds are allowed to ride on county highways under the ordinance, Johnson noted.
No one under the age of 12 can operate an ATV/UTV under any circumstances. The prohibition about 12 and under not operating ATV/UTVs under any circumstances is already in the ordinance, Lange said.
Operators under 18 either need a driver’s license or they must be accompanied by a parent, he said, pointing that the language also is included in the current ordinance.
Johnson said he had concerns about drivers 12 to 16 years old, without driver’s licenses, operating ATV/UTVs on county highways.
“I agree with you,” Lange said.
When the ATV/UTV statutes were enacted, an ATV “was primarily a four-wheel thing you straddled like a motorcycle or a snowmobile with a Honda 250 engine. And now you can buy them, and they cost more than a Cadillac and have turbo chargers and really high quality Kevlar tires,” he said.
“The power and speed and mechanical capabilities have developed way faster than the laws regulating them,” Lange said.
The original intent of state law was to allow counties to open segments of county highways so people recreating could pop out of a trail onto a county highway, go down the road a mile, and then continue on the trail, like snowmobiles, he said.
What’s next?
Is the highway committee expected to forward the proposed ordinance to the county board for approval? Johnson asked.
The highway committee could leave the ordinance as it is, or the committee could make changes to the ordinance. The committee could leave the routes the same or could open up all county highways except B. The committee could table the proposed ordinance until the May meeting, make changes, and then submit it to the executive committee to review before coming to the county board, Lange said.
They are riding now where the county highways are not open, such as Highway S and parts of Highway W, noted Gary Bjork, county board supervisor from Colfax and a member of the highway committee.
Lange said he could make the changes to the ordinance for the committee to consider at the May meeting, so it could go the executive committee and then to the county board for consideration.
The proposed updated ordinance would be a report to the executive committee about what is coming before the county board, he said.
Concerns
There are already problems with ATV/UTVs operating north on Highway M north of Colfax on a road that is busy to 22 Mile Ford, Johnson said.
“I have my concerns, to be honest with you,” he said.
Johnson said he was ready to make a motion to keep the routes as they are now until more routes are requested in October, which is the usual month to request additional county highways to be added as routes.
Bjork said that he, too, was not in favor of all county roads being open to ATV/UTV traffic.
Another county highway committee member said that Lange’s proposed changes to the ordinance would be all right to consider.
Lange reiterated that he could update the ordinance to page 5 and then bring the ordinance forward for the highway committee to review.
The sheriff’s department is interested in having more enforceability than when the ordinance was first adopted, he said.
At first there were no state laws about not operating ATV/UTVs under the influence of alcohol, but the state legislature fixed that, Lange noted.
What about a wheel tax? The county already has a wheel tax on other vehicles, what about ATV/UTVs too? asked a highway committee member.
Lange said he could check into whether counties can charge a vehicle registration fee for ATV/UTVs.
The more municipalities get away from the public safety aspect, the more the change to the ordinance would be viewed as not being consistent or conforming with state statues, Lange said.
“But I can look into it,” he said.
The highway committee does not need a motion to keep the ordinance the same, Johnson noted.
The county already has an ordinance, and the several items the sheriff’s department would like to see could wait until October, Lange said.
There are other roads that need to be looked at, Johnson said.
The highway committee wants to make sure that ATV/UTV riders are not being senselessly put in harm’s way and that others are not being put in harm’s way, said one committee member.
Lange said he could make a list of changes from the proposed updated draft of the ATV/UTV ordinance, such as the items added because of the sheriff’s department requests and concerns, and then bring those changes to the highway committee.
Being in a list would make each item easier to consider, he said.
Dustin Binder, highway commissioner, said he could provide a map for the highway committee marked with the routes that are already open.
The ATV/UTV ordinance is expected to be on the agenda for the May 10 meeting of the Dunn County Highway Committee.
Public comments
At the beginning of the meeting, several residents from the Town of Otter Creek made public comments about the proposal to open all of the county highways to ATV/UTV traffic.
One resident read a letter signed by a number of residents in that area.
The residents were not in favor of the county board opening all county roads to ATV/UTV traffic because they were concerned it would compound the problem on town roads.
The Otter Creek Town Board has opened a few of the town roads to ATV/UTV traffic, but town residents are reporting problems with ATV/UTVs on town roads that are not open.
Problems include speeding, riding recklessly, doing “donuts” on dirt roads and children who are too young to be operating the vehicles with no adult supervision.
