Published: July 05, 2008 10:58 pm      

‘We’re risking their lives to issue citations’

A youngster roars down a lined road on an all-terrain vehicle with total abandon, inflaming the passions of ordinary motorists and townspeople alike.

Tempers hit the boiling point at what happens next.

Approaching the ATV rider’s illegal cruise, contrary to existing law since his four-wheeler is banned from such roads, a sheriff’s deputy turns on his blue strobe light and hits the siren switch, motioning the youth to get off the highway.

Displaying a prevailing contempt for the law, the lad cranks up his speed and heads up the crest of a hill, putting a safe distance between him and the lawman.

Absent any other legal means, the officer lets the ATV elude him. There is no pursuit. Frustrated residents of Raleigh County find it hard to believe a sheriff’s deputy won’t chase down the lawbreaker.

To Chief Deputy Steve Tanner, however, it is no mystery, nor is the policy hard to understand.

First off, Tanner reminds any critics that an ATV, by its very design, isn’t road worthy. Tires are under-inflated. Its tread fails to give it the grip it needs on pavement. The brake system isn’t meant to stop at speeds they are driven.

“We know without a doubt they’re unsafe on the roadway,” Tanner said.

“That’s why West Virginia has so many people getting killed on the roads with them. If we know that going into it and give chase, we know we’re risking their very lives to issue citations. That’s my first concern.”

Secondly, the vast majority astride ATVs riding them recklessly on the roads are minors.

Mindful of all that, what the situation shakes out to is a police officer would be chasing a juvenile riding foolishly on a vehicle unfit for hard roads, simply to write a traffic citation, and apt to cause a fatal crash.

“Some of these kids ride like they’ve committed a triple murder,” Tanner said.

“They’re wide open when they run. It’s just a question of when they get killed. I don’t want to kill a kid to write a ticket. That’s just too much. And I just don’t want one of my deputies to live with the rest of his life that he killed somebody in order to stop his being dangerous on the road.”

Tanner, who is seeking election in November as Raleigh County’s next sheriff, says the department has devised an alternate plan in an effort to get ATVs off roads.

As far as he knows, it’s the only such road detail in force across the state. Several counties have already called to get filled in so they can duplicate the effort.

While not elaborating to the most minute details, Tanner explained that some deputies with experience on four-wheelers and properly certified are assigned to the two county-owned ATVs for special patrols in plainclothes working along trails.

Habitually, the youngsters out on public roads swerve off into the woodland trails. Drawn by the sight of an ATV parked off-road out of curiosity, they are startled when what appears to be a fellow miscreant flashes a deputy’s badge.

That’s when the force of the law comes crashing down. The ATV is towed. Riders are handed traffic tickets.

“It’s absolutely awesome,” Tanner says of the project.

“The problem we have is for us to do that effectively we have to have ATV-certified riders and have to have them on schedule to allow us to have the manpower necessary, which almost dictates they’re off duty. It’s like working a second job. We have to have the off-duty money.”

Moreover, the special ATV patrol isn’t used if there is any potential compromise of routine 911 calls, Tanner emphasized.

Residents voice complaints daily about the ATV nuisance. Areas with the highest concentration of such calls are targeted. So far, the Raleigh County Commission has been generous with the purse strings to finance the patrol. Some money has been sent through the Governor’s Highway Safety Program.

“They come to us,” Tanner said of unsuspecting lawbreakers who turn off roads into woods, right into the arms of the deputies.

“You can’t beat that. It actually is much safer. There are exceptions. There are times when it’s so dangerous and so bad if we don’t give chase and control them and get them off the road, they’re going to get killed anyway. So it’s a real Catch-22. It’s a real balancing act. Generally speaking, we don’t give chase.”

Tanner says law enforcement agencies need help from the Legislature, which, in years past, has shown a reluctance to effectively deal with ATVs.

“No one in the world can figure out” is his description of the Legislature and its perennial refusal to deal with ATV deaths.

Lawmakers consistently ignore manufacturers’ recommendations and common sense in refusing to impose an all-roads ban.

“It’s simply about votes,” Tanner suggests.

Indeed, there could be a good reason to fear a backlash. Estimates point to nearly a half million four-wheelers in West Virginia, on average, about two per household.

Tanner views the existing law of a hard-road ban only on those with centerline stripes as illogical.

“How does reflective paint make it dangerous?” he asked. “That’s all that they’re saying. The secondary roads have softer asphalt or cement? That’s not true.”

In reality, he says, the so-called country roads, those without stripes, covering some 20,000 miles statewide, pose a greater risk since they tend to be full of curves, bends and hills, not as wide, and often have cars and trucks straddling the middle.

“To me, it’s much more dangerous on these secondary roads, if you just look at the conditions and design of the roads,” he said.

“They aren’t safe.”

Nor can one argue that police fear to chase fleeing ATVs because of a liability issue, he says.

“Liability doesn’t enter into it,” he said. “We have insurance to cover liabilities. Liability has absolutely nothing in my thought process. I just don’t want to kill a kid to write a ticket. When you really think about it, it’s too much risk, knowing that the reason you’re chasing them is they’re not allowed on the road because it’s unsafe. That’s a heckuva thing to chase somebody for. It’s a real tough call.”

Besides a total road ban, Tanner wants the Legislature to compel registration, which he sees as “the ultimate answer” to the dilemma.

“And if you see one without registration, they completely lose ownership,” the veteran detective said.

Tanner says lawmakers need to upgrade the ATV law so that four-wheelers are registered and insured just as any other motor vehicle. If one is spotted sans the registration, reason exists to impound it.

“And it ought to be a special act of the Legislature that if they get caught without this on the roadway, the sheriff owns it and can sell it,” he said.

“That would be enough teeth in it to make them pay attention and keep them off the road. Until we have legislation like that, we have to deal with the rules we have.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com