By Mannix Porterfield
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Joe Manchin made no attempt Saturday to conceal his disappointment in the Legislature’s failure to ban all-terrain vehicles from every mile of paved road in West Virginia.
In the final week, the House Roads and Transportation Committee let die a total ban approved unanimously by the Senate.
That panel’s chair, Delegate Lidella Hrutkay, D-Logan, said delegates were concerned about a number of matters, including the omission of some safety issues, such as the number of passengers.
“I can’t figure that out,” Manchin told The Register-Herald when asked about the ATV measure.
“It makes all the sense in the world to keep those dern things off the highways.”
Manchin said he personally enjoys anything with wheels and motors.
“I’ve played with all that stuff,” he said.
“I can assure you they’re not made or designed for low pressure tires to be on the hard surface to drive at any speed at all.”
Karen Coria, a lobbyist for the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, said she was willing to drop a provision allowing cities and counties to regulate four-wheelers as they see fit provided the all-roads ban stayed in the bill.
Existing law bars them from all roads with a centerline stripe or more than two lanes.
Without a new statute, riders are free to roam on some 20,000 miles of unlined, country roads.
Manchin said he had no qualm about letting riders use the berms or cross roads to reach other farm fields or trails. But when it comes to riding them at will on roads, the governor was adamant.
“I think they should be banned from all paved roads except for necessary crossings and as necessary for work-related riding, as for farm use, not speeding up and down the road,” he added.
Mannix Porterfield writes for The Regster-Herald in Beckley, W.Va.
