As snow falls, snowmobile complaints rise

By GLENN KAUTH
Today staff
Monday February 06, 2006

Fort McMurray Today — The warm weather has kept local snowmobilers from taking their machines on Fort McMurray’s rivers this year, leading some of them to break laws forbidding them on local walking and ski trails.
In a recent blitz to get snowmobiles off the trails, RCMP officers handed out eight tickets for violating traffic laws for off-highway vehicles. The blitz came as local police got about 20 complaints about snowmobiles on urban-area trails in January, said Fort McMurray RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Ann Brinnen.
“We’ve had many complaints from citizens trying to use those trails,” said Robin Taylor, the chief bylaw enforcement officer with Wood Buffalo region.
“The pedestrian trail system is designated specifically for cross-country skiiers and pedestrians,” he added, pointing to the dangers of high-speed snowmobiles on places such as Birchwood trail where people walk and ski.
“On the pedestrian trails, (snowmobiling) is dangerous.” Taylor noted there have been “near misses” in the past where snowmobiles have come close to hitting people.
The minimum fine for a snowmobiler caught on the trails is $50. Instead of using the trails around Beacon Hill, Birchwood and Timberlea, snowmobilers should use the three designated ones off Railway Avenue in Waterways, off Tower Road in the Dickinsfield area and off Abasand Drive.
For the local snowmobile club, the Snowdrifters, keeping riders on the designated trails is a priority. But the club can’t do much about the problem, said Snowdrifters president Darrel Scheers, except “leading by example.”
Scheers said the club works to educate snowmobilers about using the designated trails and will often stop riders on the pedestrian ones.
“A lot of these people don’t know where else to ride,” he said, referring to the large number of new residents in Fort McMurray. The problem this year, he added, is the “iffy” ice conditions on local rivers, sending some snowmobilers onto the trails instead of the waterways.
For local cross-country skier Charlie Schrama, though, not all snowmobilers are so innocent. When a skiier tried to stop a snowmobiler recently on a trail he had just groomed, the snowmobilier replied, “I have a licence and I can driver wherever I want.”

The big irritant for skiers like Schrama is the damage the machines do to the trails that members of the Ptarmigan Nordic Ski Club create every year. “It rips up all the grooming that’s been done,” he said, noting that during one week in January skiers spotted snowmobilers in the Birchwood area every day.
While Scheers recognizes the problem, he said the club’s preference is to allow snowmobiles on some trails -- but not Birchwood -- at low speeds. “A lot of the (walkers) don’t mind the snowmobile trails because they walk on them,” he said, noting the machines harden the paths for walkers. The proposal, he added, would limit speeds to 30 kilometres an hour. He pointed out other regions in Canada do allow snowmobiles on urban-area trails.
Still, Scheers said the proposal for limited urban-area trail riding is “dreaming.” It’s a good idea, he said, but “there’s always going to be the one or two people who don’t follow the rules.”
Taylor, meanwhile, said that while enforcing the bylaws is a challenge, the best way to deal with problems is for the public to call the RCMP with complaints. He said officers don’t have to see the snowmobile on the trail. Instead, a complainant can provide evidence such as a snowmobile’s licence-plate number to identify it to police.

http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/story.php?id=211382

Have an opinion about this article? Want to discuss it? Check out our Snowmobile Forum!