my definition of advancing the sport is getting the people that participate in it to: pass a snowmobile course before hitting the trails, respect landowners, use common sense, show respect for clubs,support local and non-local snowmobile clubs, have enough skill to navigate the trails safely, stay sober before pulling the cord, show the public that we are not all maniacs, treat law enforcement as we want to be treated, work with communities to ensure continued support for trail systems, and finally to support the manufacturers to ensure their continuation of production.

that is what "advancing the sport" means to me! as for the daytime speed limit.......eh. if i had to take a stand right now i would be against it just for the reason that the drunks are out at night more than the day. again, we have shown that we cannot police ourselves so what do you think we should do?

and Yamaha-ha-ha, you are not the type of rider i was talking about. you seem dedicated to the sport and as i said, if you would have read it with both eyes, i beleive that we need more people like you. it just so happens that you wear the same bibs as the fair weather bar hoppers that i cannot stand, LOL.

You are correct about the 24/7 speed limit being next on the agenda, and that would be a terrible step. The 55 at night I could give a crap about. If we are going to make any legislative decisions any new laws should be pointed at the problem of the drunks on sleds, better enforcement visibility during all normal riding hours, and stiffer penalties including the link to your drivers license for any offences.

As a way to move snowmobiling forward you can also allow a discount on registration for those people registered in a snowmobile club. Out of state trail passes should be more readilly available at the hotels and gas stops and should be 30 per year, minnimum. Law enforcement should be allowed to stop ANYONE if there is any probability that they have been drinking, appear to have been drinking, or if they just need something to do to meet a minnimum number of personal contacts per hour that they are on the trail. They need to be given some authority to make a traffic stop without any further laws, or the need to have another infraction before they can stop you.

The big thing is that they need better safety training, and make the penalty for those without it stiffer. I took it when I was 12 in Wisconsin, and will probably take it again when my son turns 12 and gets his certificate too.

Any news laws need to target the problem areas of the drunks, off trail riding on private property, and the the infractions that continue to reflect poorly on snowmobiling.

Ride safe, Ride Sober,

Well, we're both kind of right. Accidents involving injury that is treated by a physician are required to be reported within 10 days. There is no REQUIREMENT for the warden to investigate and most accidents are not. As I said, not enough wardens or budget to do them all.

OK, got ya. But from what I've seen, it's the people that go out and buy the new high hp sleds with matching gear and go hit the trail with no clue that cause a lot of the problems. The sleds I see flipped and crashed are usually newer, probably because they went and bought the biggest sled they could and never rode before.

Is happening other places too-

Increase In Snowmobile Fatalities Spurs Safety Awareness In New York State

http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=55930

Maine Snowmobilers Told To Slow Down After Flurry Of Fatalities

http://www.wmtw.com/news/15476683/detail.html

Just thought I would bring this thread forward because nobody has mentioned the fact that we were nowhere close to any record in the number of deaths, and we probably set a new record for the length and coverage of the available trail miles across the state this year. I think the final tally for this season will be less than last year, and last year sucked for trail availability, and snow coverage.

tonite on the news they said we were 2 away from the average(27) and 2 away from the year before. Dnr says the 55 mph rule did this...How many of us beleive that.

The DNR is going to sell their own agenda. There are way to many variables to indicate the impact of the 55 mph nightime speed limit in just the couple of years that it has been in place. We would have to look the trend for many years to come to a conclusion. Regarding this years deaths, someone would have to look at the statistics and see which deaths occured dusk to dawn vs. daylight and compare them to the past years. I'd be more leaning towards the case that we had an awesome winter, so we didn't have half of Wisconsin scrambling to get their riding in on a few precious weekends, plus we had decent snowcover over the whole state, so riders were more spread out this year, which probably resulted in less congestion in the more popular areas.

hmmmmm. interesting. does that mean that the deaths will have declined for the last 2 years now? how can that be? what changed?

so let me see if i can wrap my head around this?

- what about all the business' in wisconsin that were supposed to go under?
- what about the decrease in wisconsin sledders that we were going to see?
- what about the increase in deaths that were going to happen?
- what about all the DNR harrasment that we were going to see?
- what about ALL these speeding tickets, that were going to ruin the season of so many?
- what about all the "wait until the end of the season" remarks that were made by the whiners?
- what about the future of sledding being destroyed by the evil empire known as the DNR?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! i love it!

Luvthemud
You seem like a logical die hard sledder. But what dose the dnr do that makes you enjoy sledding more.

them trying to remove drunks from the trails is enough for me.

and i was not the one that was making outlandish claims before the season, others were.