Like snowmobiles and personal watercraft before them, all-terrain vehicles’ sudden popularity has been met with a sudden dislike of the behavior of some of their riders. And just as certainly as an ATV will find mud, complaints about them have found a Legislature willing to pass laws to restrict their use. Laws may be needed, particularly those to protect riders as young as 10, but before lawmakers act they should consider some of the local solutions that will be discussed tomorrow in Augusta.

Sales of ATVs have increased 90 percent in the last five years, with 55,660 registered in 2001, and many more unregistered. But even as ATV sales have increased dramatically, the miles of ATV trails have not – there are approximately 2,200 miles of ATV trails in Maine, compared with about 13,000 miles of snowmobile trails.

As has been widely reported, landowners are finding too many riders with rotten manners – torn up fields, damaged stream beds, knocked over gates, with the result of more landowners putting up no-trespassing signs, which sometimes adds confrontation to the other problems. The Maine Warden Service has, as a secondary responsibility, the job of trying to enforce ATV laws, but they haven’t the people or the resources to do the work alone.

The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine is the sponsor of the conference Tuesday, which has been filled to capacity, and its concern is in the conference’s name, “Access at Risk: Solving the ATV Crisis.” When landowners post their property, they often do not make a distinction between an ATV rider or hunter or fisherman, many of whom also use ATVs in any event. SAM wants to preserve access by improving the way ATV riders conduct themselves. And it is obligatory to say not all ATV riders are problems for landowners, not even most of them, but enough of them to produce nine separate pieces of legislation this year in Augusta to curb their use or improve safety.

SAM has done its homework. With a grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, it has gathered extensive information on ATV use in Maine, landowner reaction, enforcement, how other states address common concerns, Maine resources for solving complaints and possible solutions. Its work, however, points not to the Legislature (except for raising registration fees), but to local enforcement and an attempt to improve the behavior of a few to keep the majority of riders from being unfairly penalized. The ATV registration fees, the way, are $12 plus a small agent’s fee compared with snowmobile registration, $30 plus a small agent’s fee.

Local enforcement, an attempt at changing the culture through ATV clubs and improved contact with landowners are the place to start. State-level legislation might be necessary if the local measures do not work and may be still be needed to protect very young riders. But SAM’s larger point is that in a state with a strong outdoor tradition and 94 percent of the land in private ownership, conflict is inevitable, if not with ATVs, or, earlier, snowmobiles, then for some other reason. Why not try to build a nonconfrontational, low-cost model for solving these problems rather than trying to legislate against them one at a time?

It is worth a try, and with luck, the conference tomorrow will produce some specific recommendations that will cool the anger around this issue.