Dunleavy opens 45 mph roads to four-wheelers, but not snowmachines

Dunleavy rolls into the Carlson Center for his Fairbanks inauguration celebration in 2018.

Gov. MIke Dunleavy has approved the plan he put in motion last spring to allow four-wheelers and other off-road vehicles on all public roads with posted speed limits of up to 45 mph.

Governments with home rule powers, such as Anchorage and the city of Fairbanks, could opt out of the requirement. And many will.

But governments such as the Fairbanks North Star Borough and other second-class boroughs will be unable to take official action without a community vote to acquire road powers. This may drag on for years.

The Dunleavy plan, which he made a priority for some reason, will legalize four-wheelers and tracked vehicles on many roads in the Fairbanks area as of Jan. 1. Operators would be legally required to be licensed, have their vehicles registered and carry insurance, the state says. Enforcement? Not in this dimension.

When this half-baked scheme surfaced last spring, I wrote here that Dunleavy had failed to provide any safety analysis justifying the plan for urban areas of the state. That remains true today.

It’s going to make things more dangerous on our roads. This is not about villages in rural Alaska where off-road vehicles are a mainstay. It’s about populated areas in or near towns where ATVs with little or no safety equipment will compete for space with faster and higher cars and trucks.

A Dunleavy donor or one of his friends probably came up with the idea, according to Amanda Price, a former Public Safety Commissioner fired by Dunleavy. The governor gave the go-ahead, opposing efforts by state officials who wanted to create a plan with public safety in mind.

“Internally it was widely discussed and assumed that this was a pet priority of one of his friends/donors that he had made a promise to. There is a solid pattern of that behavior,” Price wrote on Facebook.

The new commissioner, James Cockrell, who took the job after Price was fired, signed the regulations.

I don’t know when Dunleavy put ATVs on his “to do” list, but he rode a four-wheeler from Compeau’s inside the Carlson Center for the Fairbanks version of his inauguration in late 2018. Four-wheeler dealer Craig Compeau was the master of ceremonies at the event.

Compeau told a Fairbanks radio audience last spring that opening roads to ATVs is a great idea. He said “certain jurisdictions within the state can opt out, Anchorage for example.”

“The governor told me this, I was surprised when I was talking to him. He said that if you have snowfall that exceeds the ability for your vehicle to get around, it’s perfectly legal to drive up and down the road on your snowmachine,” Compeau said.

“To me it just seems silly that of all the states that are as open and remote as we are, we are the one of the states that absolutely, no, no way, you can’t do it,” Compeau said.

The governor had proposed allowing snowmachines on roads last spring, but that was eliminated in the final version of the regulations.

In a legislative hearing last spring, Dunleavy officials pretended that the legalization plan would not encourage unlicensed and uninsured juveniles to ride ATVs on roads. Dave Donley, Leon Morgan and Jenna Wright also pretended it would not make the roads more dangerous.

None of the pretenders would or could say why the proposal came about and who asked for it.

Morgan, deputy commissioner of public safety, said it wasn’t about creating a “new cadre” of drivers or allowing a “bunch of juveniles” to ride on the roads. Morgan also claimed that there would not be more traffic, but the same number of licensed drivers “just with different vehicles.”

The state claims that no additional appropriation is needed to register thousands or tens of thousands of off-road vehicles or enforce traffic laws.

Administration Deputy Commissioner Donley said the state was starting with the assumption that ATVs should be allowed to operate on every Alaska road where speeds are 45 mph or less. Local governments, if they have the power to do so, would be free to ban the practice, he said.

Donley was unable or unwilling to answer the simple question about how governments such as the Fairbanks borough would implement a ban without road powers. "That is a comment that we are going to take into consideration,” said Donley.

The final regulations contain no clue that it was taken into consideration.

Also missing is any formal action yet on the separate administration regulation that would require operators of off-road vehicles to get a license.

Donley was also unable or unwilling to answer a question about whether a 14,000-lb. tracked vehicle for hunting would be allowed on the roads under the Dunleavy plan.

Most of the roads in the Fairbanks area are outside the city limits and there are dozens of roads with speed limits of 45 mph or below.

The regulations say that a headlight is required for night operation, while a brake light and brakes are also mandatory. Turn signals are not required.

The state released a document that claims passengers, not operators, would need helmets. It also says that seat belts are required if they come with the off-road vehicle. Car seats will be required if the vehicle has seat belts.

The state document falsely says that the new rule applies to roads where the speed limit is “less than 45 miles per hour.” The regulations actually say it does not apply where speeds are “greater tha 45 miles per hour,” which is not the same thing.

The state document also falsely says that the regulation requires a headlight to drive on a road. The regulation actually says that a headlight is only required if the off-road vehicle is “driven during the times when lights are required. . .”

The type of off-road vehicle that will still not be allowed is one “designed or adapted for cross-country operation over unimproved terrain, ice or snow, and which has been declared by its owner at the time of registration and determined by the department to be unsuitable for general highway use,” which may mean that go-carts and golf carts will not pass legal muster.

The Fairbanks borough assembly approved a resolution April 15 opposing the Dunleavy ATV plan 6-3, warning of increased injuries and deaths. That’s probably what’s going to happen. The regulation should not have been adopted.

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