Off-Roaders in Desert

* An enthusiast quoted in “Legislator Seeks to Overturn Ban on Off-Road Vehicles” (Dec. 14) portrays his hobby as being “outside enjoying nature.” Outside it is. And the enjoyment comes from wheeling a gas-driven machine up and down the dunes. But nature?

Nature is the animal tracks obliterated by the tires, the plants smashed by the tires, the plants that are the animals’ habitat. The environment left to enjoy is sand rutted and air fouled by fumes and noisy with engines. Seventy thousand acres have been allotted to such use, but apparently it’s not enough. Thanksgiving weekend, in areas set aside as wilderness, there they were, outside, using nature.

JUDY FARRIS

Rancho Mirage