Well, you hear about it, and it actually happened to us. Myself and 2-3 other DRN'rs from Montana and North Dakota. And we need some good advice. Hopefully there is a big enough pool here that we will get something to help.
Here's the abbreviated version. I just today got the Summons to appear in court over this day we rode in September. Mind you, I never got a ticket, never signed or recieved anything related to this until I got a summons in the mail.
We are charged with a "...class B misdemeanor, in violation of Section 12.1-21-05 (1)(b) NDCC, in that (my name goes here) Along with others did willfully damage public property to wit: said defendent did ride a motorcycle off legally established trail causing damage to grass, terrain and real property belonging to the United States of America...."
This is the State of North Dakota as the plaintiff, versus myself and a few other DRN guys that hang here.
Here's the story, and we need advise on what to say, what not to say, who to talk to and how to make this go away. Mind you, I'm not afraid to fight for what's right, and am well healed enough to do it and help our other rider friends that went on the ride. I'm not worried about a couple thousand in legal fees if that should happen.
In September a NorthDakota riding buddy of mine said they had contacted the forest service about riding in this remote location 50 miles from town, and 80 miles in the middle of nowhere. We were given a map by the forest service that said we can ride there, and on the map was a bright orange sticker that said we had to ride on established trails. Sounded good to us. We loaded up some guys, I took my family, the neighborkid and a birthday cake for one of our buddies that turned 40 that week. Figured it would be cool to suprise him out in the middle of nowhere with a cake (for the record, that was fun and worth the effort). Sorry Frito, now everybody knows your old....
We got to this spot, suited up, 2 of the guys explained that we needed to be on trails, actually made an effort, and off we went down some trails following the guys familiar with the area that and had contacted the forest service.
The loop we were on took about 2 hours to complete. We came back on the main road, stopped at camp, at a sandwich, had some suprise B'day cake, some laughs and headed back out on the loop again, family, friends, kids, etc...
When we came back from that second loop, you could see up the road there were like 20 cars at the parking area, and we only accounted for 5 of them. I get there and see a bunch of ranch/farmer looking trucks (with ranch/farmer guys in them), and some Sheriff guy talking to my son who made it back to camp about 4 minutes before I straggled in.
It would appear that the farmers were pissed, and thought we should not be there, and called the law. Took the poor cop 90 minutes to drive out there, and then he had to wait with the posse about 2 hours until we got back. We were very cool, very level headed and polite the whole time. We showed that we had in good faith sent for and recieved a map of the area from the state saying that it was okay to ride there, and how they wanted us to ride it. Which we feel we did, to the best of our abilities, and as best we remember it.
We told the Sheriff how we had paperwork to be there, how people we know had talked to the forest service about GPS'ing the trails there for the cycle guys. If ever there was a group of guys that made a good faith effort to ride an area, it was us. We found the information, sent for it, recieved it, had it with us, and went.
If there is any thorny issue to the whole thing, is that this is a known riding area for a lot of cities in the area. There were tracks there near the main camp that were cycle tracks. I'm not talking Bermed up tracks, but the kind of track you'd leave if one guy rode off into the woods to take a leak. As best we can surmise, they did not come from our group. We are guessing at this point, haven't seen the charges, that they are chapped about that. But wouldn't they have to prove that they were ours specifically, and to charge a guy, wouldn't you have to say, "that's the guy officer, I saw him ride right there, his bike made the track, and I saw it".
We followed the trails, end of story. Even when the cops were there and we didn't know it, they saw us leave on the trail and return on a trail.
The problem for all of us is that we are all mostly self employed businessman with families and work obligations. How far should we go to fight this thing? I have to drive 3-4 hours to another state just to see the judge. We have it from some attorney involved that if we all come on board that he would drop the misdeamenor to a careless driving ticket... WHAT THE HECK IS THAT? We are 70 miles from civilization.
One of the guys we rode with works for a company that has a strict policy of "PERFECT DRIVING RECORD", the guy could lose his job over this. Personally, I could care less about a misdemeanor, does that mean I won't get a government loan for college? I'm 40 years old, should I care? I really don't know, and probably need to have somebody explain it further.
How does a Misdemeanor effect my life? It sounds like a $50-$100 ticket if we are found guilty.
The careless ticket they are offering is like $30 but 6 points of my dirvers license, and think of the insurance increases, OYYY! I insure a lot of cars, that's a killer. But does eventually come off the record, but at what price? $2000-$4000 in additional insurance over 3-4 years till it drops off your record.
We belive that we did not "Willfully" damage anything and did our best to abide by the rules. We showed good faith in obtaining the necessary information and abiding by it and producing the information when needed. We took our families and neighbor kids for a Sunday ride and even managed to smuggle in a Birthday cake. I can't help but think we are getting the short end here.
We're not a bunch of drunked up morons (no offence to any drunked up morons reading this), We didn't go out there with guns, shoot up signs, roost up the countryside, toss bear cans everywhere and chase the wildlife around.
Trust me, you know the old saying, "there are two sides to every sotry"... That doesn't apply here. This is the story. Sad as it seems.
What should we do??????????????????????????
Thanks for any and all advise you might have.
-Bob Stormer
Glasgow, Montana
Here's the abbreviated version. I just today got the Summons to appear in court over this day we rode in September. Mind you, I never got a ticket, never signed or recieved anything related to this until I got a summons in the mail.
We are charged with a "...class B misdemeanor, in violation of Section 12.1-21-05 (1)(b) NDCC, in that (my name goes here) Along with others did willfully damage public property to wit: said defendent did ride a motorcycle off legally established trail causing damage to grass, terrain and real property belonging to the United States of America...."
This is the State of North Dakota as the plaintiff, versus myself and a few other DRN guys that hang here.
Here's the story, and we need advise on what to say, what not to say, who to talk to and how to make this go away. Mind you, I'm not afraid to fight for what's right, and am well healed enough to do it and help our other rider friends that went on the ride. I'm not worried about a couple thousand in legal fees if that should happen.
In September a NorthDakota riding buddy of mine said they had contacted the forest service about riding in this remote location 50 miles from town, and 80 miles in the middle of nowhere. We were given a map by the forest service that said we can ride there, and on the map was a bright orange sticker that said we had to ride on established trails. Sounded good to us. We loaded up some guys, I took my family, the neighborkid and a birthday cake for one of our buddies that turned 40 that week. Figured it would be cool to suprise him out in the middle of nowhere with a cake (for the record, that was fun and worth the effort). Sorry Frito, now everybody knows your old....
We got to this spot, suited up, 2 of the guys explained that we needed to be on trails, actually made an effort, and off we went down some trails following the guys familiar with the area that and had contacted the forest service.
The loop we were on took about 2 hours to complete. We came back on the main road, stopped at camp, at a sandwich, had some suprise B'day cake, some laughs and headed back out on the loop again, family, friends, kids, etc...
When we came back from that second loop, you could see up the road there were like 20 cars at the parking area, and we only accounted for 5 of them. I get there and see a bunch of ranch/farmer looking trucks (with ranch/farmer guys in them), and some Sheriff guy talking to my son who made it back to camp about 4 minutes before I straggled in.
It would appear that the farmers were pissed, and thought we should not be there, and called the law. Took the poor cop 90 minutes to drive out there, and then he had to wait with the posse about 2 hours until we got back. We were very cool, very level headed and polite the whole time. We showed that we had in good faith sent for and recieved a map of the area from the state saying that it was okay to ride there, and how they wanted us to ride it. Which we feel we did, to the best of our abilities, and as best we remember it.
We told the Sheriff how we had paperwork to be there, how people we know had talked to the forest service about GPS'ing the trails there for the cycle guys. If ever there was a group of guys that made a good faith effort to ride an area, it was us. We found the information, sent for it, recieved it, had it with us, and went.
If there is any thorny issue to the whole thing, is that this is a known riding area for a lot of cities in the area. There were tracks there near the main camp that were cycle tracks. I'm not talking Bermed up tracks, but the kind of track you'd leave if one guy rode off into the woods to take a leak. As best we can surmise, they did not come from our group. We are guessing at this point, haven't seen the charges, that they are chapped about that. But wouldn't they have to prove that they were ours specifically, and to charge a guy, wouldn't you have to say, "that's the guy officer, I saw him ride right there, his bike made the track, and I saw it".
We followed the trails, end of story. Even when the cops were there and we didn't know it, they saw us leave on the trail and return on a trail.
The problem for all of us is that we are all mostly self employed businessman with families and work obligations. How far should we go to fight this thing? I have to drive 3-4 hours to another state just to see the judge. We have it from some attorney involved that if we all come on board that he would drop the misdeamenor to a careless driving ticket... WHAT THE HECK IS THAT? We are 70 miles from civilization.
One of the guys we rode with works for a company that has a strict policy of "PERFECT DRIVING RECORD", the guy could lose his job over this. Personally, I could care less about a misdemeanor, does that mean I won't get a government loan for college? I'm 40 years old, should I care? I really don't know, and probably need to have somebody explain it further.
How does a Misdemeanor effect my life? It sounds like a $50-$100 ticket if we are found guilty.
The careless ticket they are offering is like $30 but 6 points of my dirvers license, and think of the insurance increases, OYYY! I insure a lot of cars, that's a killer. But does eventually come off the record, but at what price? $2000-$4000 in additional insurance over 3-4 years till it drops off your record.
We belive that we did not "Willfully" damage anything and did our best to abide by the rules. We showed good faith in obtaining the necessary information and abiding by it and producing the information when needed. We took our families and neighbor kids for a Sunday ride and even managed to smuggle in a Birthday cake. I can't help but think we are getting the short end here.
We're not a bunch of drunked up morons (no offence to any drunked up morons reading this), We didn't go out there with guns, shoot up signs, roost up the countryside, toss bear cans everywhere and chase the wildlife around.
Trust me, you know the old saying, "there are two sides to every sotry"... That doesn't apply here. This is the story. Sad as it seems.
What should we do??????????????????????????
Thanks for any and all advise you might have.
-Bob Stormer
Glasgow, Montana
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