Supervisors take no action taken on ATV/UTV ordinance

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has decided to take a wait and see approach to ordinance involving ATVs and UTVs.
The subject of an ordinance designating their use on roadways was brought up as a discussion item by Supervisor Randy Cooper, who was requested to do so by his constituents. Cooper felt it was a subject worth discussing, as ATVs and UTVs had changed over the years.
“The UTV vehicles 20 years ago basically had a dump box, four tires, and went about 25 MPH. Now we have UTVs with faster speeds, seat two to six people, have temperature controlled cabs, and some can cost as much as $35,000. We’ve got a lot of farmers using them to travel farm to farm, which they can do legally,” Cooper explained. “I think some of the gray areas are due to the Co-Ops and commercial sprayer people mapping the fields, and we’ve seen several of their vehicles on the road, and it’s definitely a gray area as to whether they are using them for farm work, or not. Also, we have many individuals that would like to use them recreationally to travel from town to town, or from one friend’s place to another.”
As of now, Cooper said many of the counties surrounding Montgomery County had approved some type of ordinance, although it was hard to formulate a policy on those existing ordinances.
“The trouble is that every county makes up their own rules, so every county is different, and as Mark Peterson informed me, it’s going to take a little money to get something like this started,” commented Cooper.
Another question that was raised was about registration and other fees that would allow the ATVs and UTVs to be available for road use.
“The question is, would every vehicle need to be registered, would they have to have insurance, would they be required to have turn signal mirrors; we’d have to come up with those rules in the county, and as I said, every county’s regulations are currently different,” said Cooper.
Cooper added that over the last several years, area law enforcement has been very lenient, and most of the use has been from farmers going farm to farm. Cooper discussed the subject with Montgomery County Sheriff Jon Spunaugle, who informed him that his office had written hardly any tickets over improper ATV and UTV usage over the past two decades.
The question, Cooper said, was whether the county took individual action now, or waited for guidance from the state legislature.
“Right now, there are bills being worked on in the Iowa House and Iowa Senate. If they pass, then all the rules implemented by the counties surrounding us wouldn’t be enforceable anymore; there would be statewide rules in place,” Cooper stated.
Cooper asked for his constituents to fill out a survey and poll interest in ATV and UTV usage in the county, and there were roughly 200 people from the Red Oak area who would like to have ATV usage be legal on the gravel roads, but was uncertain whether the county should act, as statewide ATV and UTV regulations may be pending.
Spunagle said he had looked into the bill in the legislature, and from what he’d gathered, the county would be unable to limit or prohibit usage on the county roads, but he speculated it would not allow for their use in individual towns and cities.
“I’m not against this at all, because I’m very certain it is a popular item. My only caution to the board is, you can’t make a county ordinance that you are not going to enforce. The county would have to adopt particular codes for particular infractions, otherwise there would be no way to enforce it. I would be very cautious how you approach this, so it’s done the right way,” Spunagule advised.
Spunaugle felt the county should wait and see what the state did, to save doing a lot of work for nothing. Supervisor Mike Olson, who attended the March 5 legislative coffee, said the feeling he got from the legislators was that the statewide ATV/UTV rules and regulations had more than enough votes to pass.
Supervisor’s Chair Mark Peterson also viewed the proposed bill from the statehouse at the meeting, and said it was clear it took precedence.
“This says a county shall not adopt an ordinance or any other means that prohibits usage, so this will definitely take priority over anything other counties have already adopted. I’ll go on record as saying I’m not opposed to this idea, but there’s not much use in us doing anything until we see what the state does,” advised Peterson.
Peterson also speculated what requirements would be put into place to come up with registrations for them. Spunaugle speculated it would be a difficult process.
“I’m sure there will be regulations on spark arrestors, and of course the registration itself will be a problem. We run into this all the time when someone buys an ATV. It hasn’t been titled since it was bought, and it’s been sold multiple times. That’s definitely going to be a consumer issue,” Spunaugle said.
Cooper said after research and discussion, he was in favor of taking no action at this time, and said his constituents feel the same.
“After talking to Jon Spunaugle, Mark Peterson, and county engineer Karen Albert, I have the same consensus of no action being taken. I’ve even talked to my constituents, one of the guys who is really ramrodding this thing, and explained it to him, and even he agreed with the wait and see approach; Cooper said.
The supervisors were in agreement that they would take no action on a county ordinance at this time, and would revisit the issue at a later time if the state ended up taking no action on laws regulating ATV and UTV use.