Dunleavy's backdoor licensing, registration, insurance plan for snowmachines, ATVs

More evidence continues to emerge of the incompetent rollout of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s plan to open roads with a speed limit of 45 mph or less to snowmachines and other off-road vehicles.

The former Department of Public Safety commissioner fired by Dunleavy claims the department opposed the plan and warned about more deaths on roads, but the governor didn’t want to hear it.

Amanda Price, the fired commissioner, wrote on Facebook that the governor refused to take steps to mitigate the risks of his plan.

“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.

Department of Transportation officials have told me they were not consulted on the Dunleavy plan, while local governments were also left out of the loop.

As a result, we are left with the latest train wreck of the Dunleavy era, a jumbled mess of administrative blundering.

It includes a backdoor licensing and registration plan for those who wish to ride on the roads, which Dunleavy is obviously not eager to talk about.

Dunleavy claims that local governments could ban snowmachines and off-road vehicles from their 45 mph or slower streets if local officials object to opening them.

It’s not that simple.

Many local governments do not have the power. For instance, most of the roads in the Fairbanks area that would be opened to snowmachines and ATVs under the Dunleavy plan are not within the city limits. The roads are within the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

The borough does not have road powers and does not have police powers, so it is unable to adopt or enforce an ordinance that would ban snowmachines and offroad vehicles from dozens of major highways with speed limits of 45 mph or lower.

Traffic safety can’t be achieved when a governor acts on impulse, fails to demand a rational plan and is unable to communicate.

Meanwhile, the state posted a Q&A document on its public notice website that provides no real answers, while concealing more than it reveals.

The state now claims that by changing a few words in state regulations, the Dunleavy plan would require those who operate snowmachines, all-purpose vehicles, and ATVs on roads must have licenses, registration and insurance.

Dunleavy has never said that he supports driver’s licenses, registration and insurance for those who would drive snowmachines or ATVs on roads. This would anger his fans who say this is about “freedom.”

In private, they will probably be told that this is window dressing as there is no plan for enforcement of driver’s licenses, registration and insurance.

No one from the state has thought this through or presented a coherent explanation.

Officially, the state is trying to evade an existing state law, AS 28.15.021, which makes it clear that operators of “off-highway vehicles” are exempt from the requirement to obtain a driver’s license.

“A person when driving or operating an off-highway vehicle, watercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle not designed for highway use as specified by the department by regulation,” is exempt from the license requirement, the law says.

The state has decided to get around that law by redefining “off-highway vehicles” as highway vehicles and claiming they are designed for highway use. The Dunleavy administration wants Alaskans to think the essential part of the law are the words “as specified by the department by regulation.”

But a regulation that defines an off-road vehicle as a highway vehicle clearly contradicts the intent of that law.

Aside from being sneaky and dishonest, the Dunleavy plan doesn’t begin to cover the regulatory and statutory changes needed to deal with opening roads to snowmachines and ATVs. There is no public safety analysis.

It also makes a lie of the claim that this plan carries no cost to the state or public.

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