Is it time to change off-road rules in the Valley?

One of the reasons we all live in the Mat-Su Valley is the abundance of trails and other outdoor opportunities. It’s a luxury to be able to leave from your house on an off-road vehicle and ride into the mountains, to your favorite lake, or down a trail adjacent to a local road to the grocery store.

But as more and more people move here and more and more vehicles take to the roads and trails, increased density alone suggests that off-road accidents will occur with greater frequency.

As motor vehicle drivers who are required to register, license, insure and be licensed to drive a vehicle on Alaska roads, it is galling — and against Alaska law — to encounter on the road a person on an unlicensed motorcycle or ATV.

Local drivers and homeowners are aware of a litany of issues associated with irresponsible off-road vehicle use. We seem to be losing patience with this behavior.

We have grown weary of the noise, the dust, the damage to private property, the drunken driving and the unlawful use on public roads. And so now when something tragic happens and a person dies in an off-road accident, our impatience seems to boil over and we are not our best selves.

We foresee a time when rules in the Mat-Su Borough for unlicensed ATVs, motorcycles and other off-road vehicles will look more like the rules in Anchorage. We think it’s also likely that those changes will be motivated by safety concerns from the public.

We spoke with Alaska State Troopers Friday night hours after a Wasilla man riding a motorcycle died of injuries he sustained in a head-on collision with an off-road vehicle on a trail near Knik-Goose Bay Road. Troopers said both drivers were wearing helmets and protective gear and didn’t appear to have been using alcohol or drugs. Troopers said they were riding responsibly.

But accidents happen. And off-road accidents like the one that claimed the life of Brett Ray, 26, of Wasilla are comparatively rare, according to trooper spokesperson Megan Peters. In our experience, Peters is not one to shy away from pointing out where a person could have done more to protect himself. And that she didn’t in this case speaks volumes.

Much more common Peters noted are fatal car accidents, murders, house fires or boating accidents. Even people dying in their sleep is a more frequent occurrence than this sort of fatality.

Off-road collisions such as this are infrequent, but still with each tragic death we wonder if this loss will be the rallying call for regulation changes for off-road vehicles in the core area of the borough where population and traffic of all kinds is concentrated.

We don’t want to see the Mat-Su Valley locked up and off-road vehicles outlawed, but we do favor rules that require off-road users to meet a higher bar for safe, responsible conduct.