ATV Florida Forum

Today I find myself with a heavy heart having to write to you young'ems. I am 42 years old and if I die today I will die considering myself the luckiest man that ever walked the planet. No, I dont have a lot of money, but i have  great family and i did the THINGS THAT I WANTED AND ENJOYED DOING. Today, we are under constant attack from all angles when it comes to us doing what we enjoy, and in this case it's riding our ATV's. Everytime an area gets closed,it's closed FOREVER,not just for you today, but for YOUR KIDS TOMMORROW. I look through this website everyday and i see people posting articles about their new tires or pipe or how fast and so on, and i think that's great. However, if YOU, THE FUTURE OF TOMMORROW do not get involved in writing, calling, e-mailing, attending meetings and so on when it comes to your sport, you will not have a sport tommorrow. I was young once when the rainbows where black and white and I too did not worry about these issues, my friends did. Today, my friends are retired or hunting up with the Lord in a better place, so i guess now it's my turn. Please read this and give it some thought. This is a fork on the road, you can take the easy way out and life is good, or you can take  the hard road and take a stand and fight for what you believe.

At the end of the day, I will one day die when it's my turn, but i want to die fighting.....

Rick Varela

Not much I can do.. I'm 13. D:

Machine dog, there's alot you can do. You can e-mail, make phone calls, write letters, ask your parents for 20.00 to join different public access groups like ARRA, blue ribbon coalition, United four wheel drive association and so on...I know what it's like. I have a 14 year old myself, but remember that in life, you always have to stand up and fight for what you believe in, otherwise, it will be taken away from you...

I can be a real smart @ss
cant email, no computer, cant make a phone all, over my minutes,cant write, Illiterate, 20 is for the track.

Think about it,us kids already learned, no one will really take us serious even if we did vioce our opinions, and lets say we did get involved, make aphone call and get nothing but"Yeah, Ok's, and Please hold".I'm all for new riding area's ,but as long as the big people in florida continue to give us the "black eye", were cr@@p otu of luck.

Even if we do everything we can we still wont get anything good out of it.  Come on do you think the local government will care??? ???

i say you email them so many times like you use to post so manytimes they might do anythign

Yes, lets just not put any effort into saving riding area's, it makes so much sense! I guess this is the effort that people put into saving current riding areas and opening new ones. This is why no one takes us seriously, because of attitudes like, "Well, it probably wont work, so I'm not even going to try.".. When we have no where to ride quads at, you will have no right what so ever to complain.

Lets seriously try to get a protest going where every rider in florida gets together and drives their quads down the road blocking traffic and holding signs that say stuff like "give us riding areas or give us death!"

yes, lets protest by doing something illegal....

Thats the stupidest thing Ive ever heard, that makes us look like idiots

ok well do that if u run up a 20  mile hill backwards,naked,in a sleet/hail storm,holding a barbie doll,singing the barnie theme song,with a bolder tied to you ankles,and you atv on the line and you have to do this in 2 hours

What? I am serious about that , ok, then just ride and tell the police to deal with it.

LMFAO! :D But do you know what is wrong with your protest idea? We live in Florida so they would just shoot us.. :-\

Do you really realize what you just said ? ? ? I thought the same way, but everyone can make a difference... I had a teacher tell me once that the average American may only make a difference in 1 person's life every day, but if you stop to think for a second that for every time you said "I" maybe if you thought of someone else, you may one day make a difference for everyone.... Even if it means that you volunteer a few hours a week to a local Boys & Girls Club or a Conservation group ( which most of them are fighting to keep what little riding land we do have open ) you can make a difference & you do have a voice that can be heard ....

I can't do much I'm only 12  ;D

so there were kids younger than you at the meeting,how do i know i went and im just 12!!!!!!!!!!

I am on the kids activity committee for everglades regional and i have a 5 year old little hirl who comes out to support the club at events .....

What would help the most, is if everyone cleaned up after themselves!  I was just at Ocala Nat Forest, and it was littered with plastic water bottles, and glass beer bottles.  The rangers, said that we will loose it of we keep breaking the rules, and littering.  In contrast, Croom is clean of litter???  Maybe if you had to pay $50 to get in they would try to keep it nice.  Something really needs to be done, or we'll loose that one! 

what can we do not many adults even listen to us "its all sure and oks..." they never do anything... ive been begging my dad for a year to fix his bike has he listened? nope. if not id be more active on site... now in my neighborhood atleast 50-75% of the neighborhood has atvs maybe 20% actually use em!!! what can we do??? if we do sumthing illegal theres the risk of jail or death... now im only 14 and i always fight for what i want i stand my ground a fight for it but this is just too much most of it is just little things... :-\ what more can kids meer kids and teens do? no1 listens...

That is so true, when I first started riding I went to ghostlands, and people abused it so it was shut down, a few years later, it became about 2000 homes, and a golf course.

u do not need to talk on thiis this iis kids cornner.... :N