MONCTON – A Moncton snowmobiler is challenging regulations for riding on New Brunswick’s snowmobile trails with an online petition.
Caleb Morton said he started the petition because the 2013 regulation changes limit riders’ freedom on the trails.
“Now when you go out in the woods you have to worry about getting big fines over little things,” he said.
The regulations include placing a trail permit on the bottom centre of a snowmobile’s windshield and installing registration plates on snow flaps.
But Morton says the new rules don’t make sense.
“I personally have two windshields so that means I would have to buy a replacement sticker for my second windshield,” he said, noting registration plates are hard to read on snow flaps.
“Our plate locations, they want them on the back of the snow flap,” he said. “But after 2 kms of riding you can’t even see the plate.”
Snowmobilers are also required to use a muffler or exhaust system to “comply with the manufacturers original specifications.”
But Morton says that limits the use of louder snowmobiles modified for racing.
“We’re in the middle of the woods running and we’re not bothering people,” he said.
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Morton hopes his online petition will make a difference. By Thursday evening there were nearly 1,400 names added to the site.
The provincial government says the changes to regulations were made based on recommendations from the New Brunswick Federation of Snowmobile Clubs.
Ross Antworth is the Federation’s general manager and says the changes help regulate trail use.
“We’re working with the Department of Public Safety and the minister to find some options but we caution people this is a legal document it must be visible,” he said, noting limiting noise levels also keeps the trails open.
“The trail system in New Brunswick is dependent upon permission and the privilege of thousands of landowners,” he said. “The issue is that although it maybe a beautiful sound to some people it is a horrible sound to landowners who could block the trail and make it so that snowmobilers would have no where to go.”
Morton says he’ll present his petition to government at a later date.
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