Trespassing sledders

Thank you, Tom Weber, for your thoughtful column (Feb. 25) about dangerous snowmobilers.

Mindful that one of the 14 now dead was walking quietly on a lake when a snowmobile struck and killed him, I conclude that there is no haven, no refuge. Even on Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where snowmobilers may travel legally on one section, some continue to travel illegally on other sections.

What are the trespassers thinking, if at all? Probably, “Can’t catch me!” It’s time to resurrect a proposal made decades ago: Require every snowmobile to have a registration plate attached to its tread so that the plate number will be imbedded in the snow with each revolution .

“But only a small percent of snowmobilers are irresponsible,” say snowmobilers. How small – 5 percent? Five percent of the nearly 100,000 machines registered in Maine equals 5,000 speeders and-or trespassers.

Granted, an imbedded plate number records only the last trespasser, but that’s better than having no clue left behind. And granted, speeding and alcohol are the serious problems, but – quite likely – many trespassers are also speeders, and we can only hope that if apprehended for trespassing, they might then be less inclined to speed.

Fern Stearns

Milford