Warden fears high costs of speedy sleds

When Sgt. Doug Tibbetts joined the Maine Warden Service 32 years ago, he didn’t have to think much about the dangers of snowmobiles streaking like rockets through the countryside.

Back then, he said, your average humble snowmobile poked along at about 35 or 40 mph – downhill, that is. Over the decades, however, as the number of snowmobile registrations in Maine has soared to about 100,000, so too has their horsepower, speed and accident rate.

“The speed thing is definitely out of control,” said Tibbetts, referring to the new breed of machines capable of traveling at more than 100 mph. “Speed is our biggest problem right now, and there’s really no way for wardens to control it.”

Last weekend’s accident on Pitcher Pond in Lincolnville, in which a 9-year-old boy was critically injured when his snowmobile was struck by another going about 100 mph, makes wardens like Tibbetts wonder when Mainers will decide to finally put the brakes on their favorite pastime.

Maine imposes no speed limit on snowmobiles. The only regulation on the books, Tibbetts said, is that riders must maintain a “reasonable and prudent speed according to existing conditions.” That’s the tricky part, Tibbetts said, since what is imprudent to a warden may not be considered imprudent to the rider going 80 who swears he was in full control of his screaming snowsled the whole time.

“It’s completely open to interpretation, my word against his,” Tibbetts said with a shrug. “So, no, we don’t issue a lot of summonses for imprudent speed. It’s tough going to court with these cases because the law is not clear-cut. The prosecutors and judges don’t want speculative cases.”

Unfortunately, he said, the only undeniable evidence that a snowmobiler is driving dangerously fast is when he loses control of his machine and crashes. And that kind of tragic evidence has been abundant in recent years. Last year, 12 people were killed on snowmobiles in Maine, matching the record number of fatalities set about five years earlier. There have been five deaths already this year, with at least a couple of snowy months left in the season. Last year’s 438 accidents was the most ever recorded by the warden service.

“The deaths get the most publicity, of course,” said Tibbetts, who has been a recreational snowmobiler for many years. “But it’s not just deaths. What gets lost are all the serious injuries and lifelong disabilities that people suffer every year.”

In Etna recently, he said, a man lost control of his snowmobile, struck a tree, and was thrown into the trail. A friend riding behind him then ran over the man’s head with his snowmobile’s spiked track, adding puncture wounds to a list of injuries that included a broken arm and leg. While the injured man was cited for operating under the influence, his friend was not charged with any infractions.

“Should we have summonsed the second guy for imprudent speed because he was going too fast to avoid running over his friend?” Tibbetts said. “Maybe, but it would have been tough to prove.”

While Maine boaters have always had to follow strict safety guidelines on the water, he said, snowmobiling remains a largely unregulated recreation. There is not even a law requiring that snowmobiles drive on the righthand side of a trail.

“Yes, we’ve had head-on collisions,” he said, “and then people want to lay blame by saying the other guy wasn’t far enough to the right. But there is no obligation to stay to the right, and no rules about passing, either.”

Tibbetts said snowmobile clubs – the Maine Snowmobiling Association lists 278 member groups – do a very good job of policing themselves and encouraging safe riding on the state’s 12,000 miles of trails. Many clubs promote their sport as a safe and enjoyable recreation for families. Riders whose only pleasure is seeing how fast their high-performance machines will go – at speeds they couldn’t drive legally in their cars – do nothing to enhance the sport’s wholesome image.

“In my opinion,” Tibbetts said, “a snowmobiler can never safely judge conditions at high rates of speed. You won’t see the bumps or pressure ridges or the ice-fishing holes out there. A mound of snow a foot high would launch you into the air if you’re going 100 miles an hour across a lake. It’s crazy. But as time goes on there are faster and faster sleds on the market. The ads on TV show them flying through the snow and jumping in the air, and more people are buying the more powerful sleds. Years ago we didn’t really enforce the OUI laws for snowmobilers, because sleds didn’t go that fast and accidents were usually minor. Now, speed compounds everything.”

Tibbetts said he would rather not have to have a speed limit for snowmobilers. Enforcement would be difficult and time-consuming for wardens. The snowmobiling public isn’t clamoring for speed laws, either, although the issue has been debated off and on for years.

“People get the laws they want, and the majority obviously doesn’t want speed limits,” Tibbetts said. “It’s not up to the wardens to decide what the laws should be. But I can foresee a time when something will have to be done. Outside of the feds regulating the horsepower of snowmobiles, a speed limit of some kind is the only answer I can think of. How else can you control it anymore? To me, 12 deaths in one season is unacceptable. It makes me wonder how much more carnage the public is willing to accept.”

Tom Weber’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.