George wrote:
>
>
> > That's odd. I thought that the trails were for cyclists and pedestrians.
> > All the trails around here are clearly marked no motorized vehicles.
>
> This was in an area that has a formally marked trail and adjacent areas
> that just have crude trails.
>
> The problem is that clueless parents buy these machines for kids and let
> them do whatever they want. They then scream around with them. Since
> they are small and fast they can get in and out quickly and the police
> have a hard time trying to catch them.

It is a problem. The last things the cops want to do is to chase the kids
and have one get killed running from them. I guess maybe the town isn't
aware of the liability issues. He had a case in a city here in Ontario a
number of years ago that sent insurance raises soaring. The city owned a
piece of property that was clearly signed no motorized vehicles and had
huge rocks blocking the entrance wide enough to keep out cars and most 4
wheel vehicles, but dirt bikes could still get through. Two young kids
disobeyed the signs, manoeuvred their way around the rock barriers and were
riding their dirt bikes on the city owned property and ended up running
into each other head on. It was not the parents who bought the kids the
bikes, gave them gas to use them and allowed them to use them unsupervised
on city property who were held liable. The sued the city for $5 million and
won.

Our town has a similar problem with skateboarders. It is bad enough that
the sound alone is annoying, and that they don't care about the safety of
pedestrians, but they do the stupidest things on them and end up getting
hurt, and the town could end up getting sued.