Sen. Tom Hatch, R-Panguitch, sponsored Utah's Senate Bill 166, "Off-highway Vehicle Registration Provisions," which went into effect Jan. 1. Now Hatch is the driving force behind a campaign to reverse the policy.

"I'm man enough to admit when something doesn't work," Hatch said this week. "It didn't work and we need to be wise enough to admit when we made a mistake. We're going to repeal the law."

Leona Harris, deputy assessor for Cache County's Motor Vehicle Department, said the stickers have resulted in a public outcry.

"I've heard so many people complain because there's not room on the vehicles and there are too many stickers," Harris said. "They don't like the hassle of having to go purchase those and stick them on. It's one

more thing they have to do."

Environmentalists don't buy arguments that the one-inch letters and numbers are too inconvenient.

"That off-road vehicle users don't like putting registration numbers on their machines is akin to people refusing to put license plates on their cars because of looks - it just doesn't make any sense," Steve Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a statement. "These registration numbers are important for law enforcement, as well as public safety, there is no reason that ORVs should be treated any differently than other motor vehicles."

Hatch said he was approached a few years ago by the Backcountry Horseman's Association and an off-highway vehicle user group, whose members expressed concern that "we were going to lose access to some of our public lands if we didn't come up with some way of identifying those abusing the lands."

Administered through the Utah Division of Motor Vehicles, all off-highway vehicles are now issued a unique registration identification consisting of three letters and two numbers.

Upon annual registration, owners are required to purchase decals in colors that contrast with their machines and affix them to the sides or rear of their off-highway motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles. The idea was that riders abusing public lands and trespassing on private property could be identified and reported, Hatch said.

"Unfortunately there are a small number of individuals that create a bad image for the vast majority of people that comply with the law and stay on the trails where they're supposed to," he said. "It's a real problem for the Forest Service and BLM, who list off-highway vehicle damage as one of their top three concerns."

Fred Hayes, Utah Division of Parks and Recreation off-highway vehicle coordinator, said extreme opposition to the legislation is, "mostly because the public didn't perceive that this would solve the problem."

"We all kind of thought it [SB166] might help. This one just didn't work," Hayes said. "There are some folks, I'm sure, who've been deterred because they were afraid of their numbers being turned in. . . . But we've had

no reports at all of somebody turning in a number for a violator."

Hayes supports efforts to identify and punish "renegade users" who vandalize property, trespass, cut new trails or commit other acts that depreciate natural resources.

"We need to find some other way [to] identify those people causing problems," Hayes said. "We need more enforcement people out there, shutting down the bad guys."

Hatch said he has talked with Mary Tullius, director of Utah's state parks, about starting a toll-free hotline for reporting violations.

"Almost everybody's carrying a cell phone now and just the knowledge that people may report them may be a constraint to some of these individuals," Hatch said.

abrunson@sltrib.com