Interesting. I quit playing in the dirt with my toy trucks when I was… oh, about 6 years old.

A few weeks ago, the Forest Service announced a plan to control the proliferation of illegal trails created by off-road enthusiasts. Personally, as I said in an earlier post, I wish the government would just get out of the recreation business. I think it should be illegal to drive motorized vehicles off road on any public land. You can’t dump garbage on public lands, why are you allowed to churn it into a mud hole with your 4×4? These people do a lot more tangible, direct damage to natural habitats than urban Hummer drivers. Most people are not aware of it because they do all of this damage off the beaten track.

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Let the enthusiasts pay the market price for tearing up the planet. There are plenty of entrepreneurs out there who would love to charge them to use their property — assuming, of course, that the government would create a level playing field by enforcing laws that protect wetlands and streams on these properties. You might even see a throttling of this growing industry by free market user fees, which could be quite steep, depending on competition, supply, and demand.

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