sled cop stories?

[HOTRODREDNECK]

I certainly agree if I worked as a County or Municipal officer or Highway Patrol dealing with snowmobile issues would and should be a lower priority. However I am employed as a Park Ranger for the SD Division of Parks and Recreation where outdoor recreation is our main focus and priority. The users of our parks demand that they and their families can visit our parks and feel safe. Many of our parks on a busy weekend contain more people than many of the communities within our state. We also deal with boating issues on the lakes within and near our parks. 6 full time Park Rangers provide law enforcement services for all of SD State Parks. The State of SD is responsible for the administration of the snowmobile program. The state has a MOU (memorandum of understanding) for the establishment of a trail system on the Black Hills National forest.
Snowmobiling in the Black Hills is unique in that it provides well known trail opportunities as well as some back country riding (nothing that will ever rival the mountains to the west). We have riders that come to only ride trails, others who try hard to avoid trails and others who do a little of both. Approximately 200+ rental sleds are available and are usually all rented each weekend. Many have little experience ot knowledge on snowmobiles and some have never seen snow before. They are not restricted to trails and find themselves in situations they cannot get out of. Many times other snowmobilers rescue them, sometimes we run across them but if they call for help we are called to respond. SAR is also sometimes called but they rely heavely on us since we have more experience and better equipment. Rentals account for 2/3 of the accidents I deal with. Our use is a little over 50% non-residents.
The Black Hills is also unique in it is Federal USFS land intermixed with private lands. We are called to deal with trespass complaints. Local County law enforcement does not have the officers available or the equipment to deal with these complaints (they are dealing with the other area's of society).
The SD Division of Parks and Recreation currently does not have any involvement with ATV use on FS lands. The USFS has enforcement resposibilities for ATV use on their lands. I do get involved with motorcycle use in Custer State Park during the Sturgis rally. Most of our time is spent responding to numerous motorcycle accidents and keeping the bison from running over bikes (bison hate Harley's).
I also believe in priorities. Even though the segment of population I have been hired to serve may not be a priority in some peoples mind I do place priorities in the law enforcement I provide. They are as folllows in decending order of priority:
1. Protect people from others
2. Protect people from the resource
3. Protect the resource from the people
4. Encourage a stable revenue source

There are 2 of use providing snowmobile law enforcement on a full time basis. The 2 of us make up .1% of Law Enforcement Officers in the state of SD to serve .1% of the registered vehicles in SD plus all of our non-resident visitors.

I WANT TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THE BISONS RUNNING OVER HARLEYS

 

[joel97mustang]

FINALLY, A reasoned Argument!

I certainly agree if I worked as a County or Municipal officer or Highway Patrol dealing with snowmobile issues would and should be a lower priority. However I am employed as a Park Ranger for the SD Division of Parks and Recreation where outdoor recreation is our main focus and priority. The users of our parks demand that they and their families can visit our parks and feel safe. Many of our parks on a busy weekend contain more people than many of the communities within our state. We also deal with boating issues on the lakes within and near our parks. 6 full time Park Rangers provide law enforcement services for all of SD State Parks. The State of SD is responsible for the administration of the snowmobile program. The state has a MOU (memorandum of understanding) for the establishment of a trail system on the Black Hills National forest.
Snowmobiling in the Black Hills is unique in that it provides well known trail opportunities as well as some back country riding (nothing that will ever rival the mountains to the west). We have riders that come to only ride trails, others who try hard to avoid trails and others who do a little of both. Approximately 200+ rental sleds are available and are usually all rented each weekend. Many have little experience ot knowledge on snowmobiles and some have never seen snow before. They are not restricted to trails and find themselves in situations they cannot get out of. Many times other snowmobilers rescue them, sometimes we run across them but if they call for help we are called to respond. SAR is also sometimes called but they rely heavely on us since we have more experience and better equipment. Rentals account for 2/3 of the accidents I deal with. Our use is a little over 50% non-residents.
The Black Hills is also unique in it is Federal USFS land intermixed with private lands. We are called to deal with trespass complaints. Local County law enforcement does not have the officers available or the equipment to deal with these complaints (they are dealing with the other area's of society).
The SD Division of Parks and Recreation currently does not have any involvement with ATV use on FS lands. The USFS has enforcement resposibilities for ATV use on their lands. I do get involved with motorcycle use in Custer State Park during the Sturgis rally. Most of our time is spent responding to numerous motorcycle accidents and keeping the bison from running over bikes (bison hate Harley's).
I also believe in priorities. Even though the segment of population I have been hired to serve may not be a priority in some peoples mind I do place priorities in the law enforcement I provide. They are as folllows in decending order of priority:
1. Protect people from others
2. Protect people from the resource
3. Protect the resource from the people
4. Encourage a stable revenue source

There are 2 of use providing snowmobile law enforcement on a full time basis. The 2 of us make up .1% of Law Enforcement Officers in the state of SD to serve .1% of the registered vehicles in SD plus all of our non-resident visitors.

Much respect for a well thought out rebuttal. THANKS! Most of all you did it with name calling, put downs or insults. I guess that is why you put number #1 "Protecting people from Others" Interesting!

 

[Jay]

Let me tell you a story about my friend, I'll call him Dave (cause thats his name ) Dave was a young boy growing up in Ontario on his familys farm and one day his dad brought home an old ski doo, the type where the carb was right in your lap, remember them? Well Dave loved that skidoo, he rode it everywhere, even off the trails sometimes where he knew he shouldn't be, but just look at all that powder, he couldn't resist. Trouble was all that beautiful powder would get sucked up by that open carb in his lap and the mighty skidoo wouldn't run very good. What to do. Well Dave got the great idea of taking a plastic bread bag, poking it full of just the right amount of stratigically placed holes, tieing it on the end of that open carb and voila! the perfect air filter. So the next day Dave is out trying out his new idea, everything is working beautifully, so into the ditch (where he shouldn't be) he goes. He's cruising alongside the highway looking pretty cool he thinks, smiling and waving at the people, winking at the girls, when out of nowhere a OPP cruiser screeches to a stop beside him, the cop bails out and starts yelling at Dave to stop in the name of the law and running down into the ditch to aprehend this dastardly criminal. Naturally Dave freaks, thinks I'm not going down like this and nails the throttle to the bar for his big getaway, sadly when that huge carb opened wide it sucked the entire plastic breadbag in, the engine starts running very poorly now, even worse then when it was sucking snow and Dave has a real problem on his hands. So he's trying to pull the breadbag out of the carb with his left hand and pulling the rewind with his right for all he's worth as the cop is bearing down on him. Of course everytime he almost gets the bag out he sucks it back in cause he's pulling the rewind. Anyway Dave gets the bag out just in the nick of time, starts his trusty skidoo and escapes the law by inches as he speeds away back to the farm. This is a true story told to me by my friend Dave, by the time he finished he had me in tears I was laughing so hard. Dave moved out to BC for work almost 30 years ago and was the guy that talked me into buying a sled. He'd say things like "look at these hills, it must be great up there" Well he was right, and as they say, the rest was history.

 

[Jeff C]

These numbers and information is so easy to find but you ARE NOT really interested in the facts are you.

The number of registered snowmobile in the WEST (322,000) is dramatically lower than the EAST

Western States

http://www.snowmobile-alliance.org/

Eastern States

Registered snowmobiles in the EAST (833,763) Michigan and Minnesota have half a million in those two states alone.

http://www.snowmobile.org/stats_registrations_us.asp

I could easily pull other numbers but what would that prove. You would find another issue to delude yourself. The reason there is little or no alcohol related stats for most western states is it is so small that counting it would illustrate nothing.

I am not against cops I just think their resources would be better served in other areas i.e summer boating, ATV, motorcycle, etc. They would save so many more lives because sledding is a tiny community and has very few incidents of death/accidents/injury out west comparative speaking.

The accident rate is so small how would adding more and more law enforcement reduce it to zero. It will never happen. It's the LAW of diminishing returns. People will always crash theirs sleds, people will always die. It such and small number out WEST, I think it doesn't warrant the manpower,regulation, fines, etc.

It's a straight cost/benefit analysis.

Well, nice try by posting links to meaningless sites that do not do anything to help your point.

I guess if you say something over and over enough, you somehow convince people that your argument is valid.

That is delusional........