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Off-Road Riders Fined while Riding on their Own Property:
Four teens in Hampden, Massachusetts, were fined $750 each by the Massachusetts Environmental Police while riding on their own property. The teens were riding on land owned by the parents of one of the boys, with the parents' permission, when the environmental police arrived and questioned them for two and a half hours. In the end, each teen received a $250 fine for operating an unregistered recreational vehicle, and a $500 fine for the operation of a recreational vehicle without a safety certification.
Speaking to 22News, Melanie Beck said her son and three friends were riding around her wooded yard, with her permission, when Massachusetts Environmental Police arrived and questioned the boys before handing out the fines. Beck wondered why the boys were not given a warning instead of a fine, considering the laws that they broke are apparently not well known in the area. She says other parents in the area have taken to social media to express their displeasure with the fines.
One of the teens told 22News that they were just trying to have fun, in contrast to other teens "doing drugs and vaping" instead of participating in outdoor activities.
A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Environmental Police, Craig Gilvarg, told 22News that safety education requirements for young riders have been in place since 2010. Additionally, the state of Massachusetts requires all recreational vehicles operated on public and private lands to be registered through the Massachusetts Environmental Police.
Earlier in February, 22News reported that ATV and dirt bike riders riding on city streets have been an ongoing issue in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, saying that they had received multiple viewer complaints about the illegal activity. Police there have used undercover cars, motorcycles, and cameras to attempt to stop the problem, and have asked the public to keep an eye out for where the riders might be storing their vehicles.
See also: Four teens fined $750 for violating dirt bike laws in Hampden; What are the rules?
Environmental police? Huh? They're just jealous because they can't get it up, let alone up on two!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @08:44PM (10 children)
That may well be so. However, it is the law in Massachusetts.
How do the folks in Massachusetts get laws? IIUC, every few years they hold these events called "elections" where the residents of the state choose (by popular consent) who will make/modify laws for the state. Weird, right? Who would ever do something so strange?
One thing they also do is *publish* those laws [mass.gov].
But it gets weirder. If folks don't like the laws that the folks elected for that purpose make, they can vote for *different* people in the next election in an effort to get the laws with which they disagree changed. I know, I know, this is like some wacky bullshit out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but it's really true!
But when it gets *personal*, things get much, much crazier! In cases where the law is applied and folks don't think the law was applied appropriately or fairly, they can do this unusual thing called a "legal defense." That can include pleading not guilty and forcing the state to prove that the law was applied appropriately, and/or (who ever heard of this????) filing a lawsuit challenging the appropriateness of the particular application of such law, the validity of the law itself, or both.
Those crazy Massholes [wiktionary.org] even have names for this ridiculous shit: representative democracy and the rule of law.
Who ever heard of such insane stuff? Sheesh!
(Score: 4, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 23 2020, @09:21PM (2 children)
Conservatives have recently become opposed to the rule of law.
So that may explain the confusion...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @09:36PM
It is not recent, they merely stopped caring about the optics.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @01:05AM
Liberals and immigration law enforcement? Glass houses, my sanctuary city friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:14PM (2 children)
That just sounds like an endless cycle of elected officials tearing down the policies of the previously elected official no?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:37PM
So you think what we need is a supreme ruler who makes laws by edict, and for which there is no appeal or remit. Because that's what it means to be an American, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:42PM
That is how it goes, and hopefully not an endless cycle as the morons die off and better policies are accepted. This whole Trump stupidity throws everything off, tearing shit down to spite Obama and just for the hell of it.
What maroons.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @10:45PM (3 children)
Problem is that the busybodies and pressure groups work full time to get their pet laws passed. They do this BEFORE and AFTER the election, non-stop. Do you have time and money to lobby non-stop? I don't; I work for a living and have a family to raise and even if I did have the time to lobby, I mostly just want to be left alone to live my life. This actually describes most people yet... you are on your high horse telling me it's my fault things got the way they did. Sorry, it's not. Just because we have a representative democracy doesn't mean the will of most people is what becomes law. It's a never ending war, and the firepower is not evenly distributed across the citizens. Surely you are not going to ignore the influence of $MONEY$ in politics, are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2020, @11:02PM (1 child)
I'll summarize my own point: voting for candidate A over candidate B is not enough to get the laws you want. First of all, is your pet issue even on the radar of one of the candidates? If not, I don't see how voting will affect anything. Secondly, and even more importantly, you may live in one of those places where a single political party has such a stranglehold on the electorate that you don't even have a choice between two candidates: the ruling party is guaranteed to win, and thus the laws that their party passed will NOT be overturned by the new politician of the same party who wins... again.
In order to influence politics, you need to build up a coalition and fund it. A lone person's vote is no more than a drop of piss in a toilet.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @01:31AM
Your summary is longer than the original post. Without "I'll summarize my own point" it is almost the same.
#Fail
#SystemOfContracts
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @12:16PM
Some people think laws are more important than money, others that money is more important.