Citizens cautioned of the danger ATV’s are presenting

Guymon, Oklahoma, Feb 3, 2010- The recent winter weather presented a situation where the roadways were covered in snow and impassible to many motorists which caused some to use ATV’s on the roadways. However, many who were operating the ATV’s were creating a dangerous situation for not only themselves but also motorists who were traveling on the roads according to Lt. Michael Arndt of the Guymon Police Department who commands the uniform patrol division. “This past winter weather brought out some people on ATV’s that were playing in the streets doing donuts and driving extremely fast on the streets which caused people in automobiles to have to try and keep from hitting them and with the roads in the condition they were in the only thing they needed to be concentrating on was simply driving and not having to deal with the people out playing around,” Lt. Arndt commented. “We also had a problem with ATV’s driving all through the city parks and driving reckless out there as well and with all we had to deal with we just could not get to all the ATV’s,” added Lt. Arndt.

Guymon officers dealt with over 90 motorists who were stuck on the snowy streets in Guymon last week when the winter weather struck and with the anticipation of more snow in the near future Guymon Police are asking citizens to not operate ATV’s on the roadway or the city parks.

“What we saw with the last snow was some people out on ATV’s that were being reckless on the roads causing them to be even more dangerous than they already were but we want to make it clear that we are talking about ATV’s and not the Utility Vehicles that were out,” added Chief of Police Eddie Adamson who was commenting on the utility vehicles that are legal to operate on the roads due to the recent city ordinance that allows them to operate with restrictions on city streets. “According to our patrol officers they saw some legal utility vehicles out on the snowy roads but they were just traveling and weren’t a problem at all but the ATV’s such as four wheelers or quads that were out were the ones that created the problem and some were cited for being reckless on the roadways when the officers could get to them in between the 90 plus calls they had to go on to deal with just the vehicles stuck on the streets,” Adamson added.

“The people who were out on the ATV’s playing around were just trying to have fun in the snow and we understand that but when their actions become so reckless that they are creating a danger for themselves and motorists in vehicles we have to step in and stop them before someone gets hurt and I really don’t think some of these people realize just how dangerous it becomes when the roads get in the condition they do when we get snow or ice on them,” Arndt added “ we just want everyone to be safe so we are offering this information not as a way to say we are going to write tickets to people out on ATV’s but as a way to make them aware that their playing around on them is a danger on the streets whether they intend for it to be or not,” added Lt Arndt.