Visitor Survey Off Highway Vehicle Users Section 1 a.) Are you a member of an organized Off Highway Vehicle Club? Yes No (circle one) If yes, what is the name of your club? (optional) b.) Tell us the main reasons you enjoy OHV recreation: c.) How many times per year do you participate in OHV recreation? Section 2 When driving off-road, do you: a.) drive only on roads and trails designated for OHVs? b.) stay clear of areas that are marked Closed to vehicles? c.) reduce your speed when you encounter hikers or other drivers? d.) carry current California Department of Motor Vehicles registration for your OHV? e.) pack out all your garbage and equipment when your trip is done? (Please circle one for each question) Always Most of the time Once in a while Never
Section 3: a.) When driving off-road, do you remove litter and/or other evidence of human impacts that you find along the trail? b.) Do you avoid driving through streams and other marshy areas? c.) Do you encourage other OHV users to reduce their impacts on trails and habitats? d.) Do you participate in organized projects whose goals are clean-up or restoration of areas damaged by OHV use? e.) In general, do you attempt to minimize the impacts of your off-road recreation? (Please circle one for each question) Every time I get the chance Often Once in a while Never Section 4: Tell us about yourself: a.) b.) c.) d.) Gender: M F Age Average annual household income What is the highest educational training you have received? (please check one) High school only Some college Bachelor s degree Master s or PhD degree Thank you for completing the survey! Your help is greatly appreciated.
Description of the Survey Instrument: The main goal of this survey instrument is to produce a two-part measure of the individual s responsibility with regard to OHV recreation. The first part of the survey serves as an introduction, asking an engaging initial question that, hopefully, will encourage the participant to complete the rest of the questions. Most importantly, however, the first section measures the independent variable, OHV club membership (or not). The second section asks a series of questions that pertain to law-abidingness while using OHVs. It is designed to create an index that measures the degree to which the participant follows the rules that govern OHV use and are designed to reduce ecological impacts of OHV recreation. The second section asks questions that address actions that actively reduce the impacts of OHV recreation, that go above and beyond simply obeying the law. It produces an index of the participant s general responsibility. Other aspects of the survey include length. Because of sampling technique used, simply stopping individuals on their way to an enjoyable day on the trail, the survey was designed to take as little of the participant s time as possible, so as to maximize response rate. Also, because the survey includes questions that deal with the participant s degree of law-abidingness, a potentially sensitive concept, the survey is anonymous. The participant s name is not included, and the only identifying response, the name of the participant s OHV club, is optional, asked more out of researcher s interest than out of desire that club name be a usable piece of data. Administering the Survey: In the previous exercise, the difficulty of obtaining a sample frame for this survey was discussed. Because no comprehensive list of users who recreate on California OHV
trails exists, this study will be conducted based on available survey participants. The written survey will be given to OHV users entering selected recreation areas in California. Obtaining a random selection of OHV recreation areas presents complications, however, as some areas are open year round, while some are open only after snows have melted completely and the trails are dry enough to permit safe riding. This uncertainty in the season length for various recreation areas prevents us from simply taking a random sample of all recreation areas in California; instead, we will focus our summer efforts on three recreation areas that are only open from approximately May to October. One of these receives heavy use, one moderate use, and the third, light use. For the rest of the year, we will survey three different areas that allow year-round visitors. Again, one area is heavily used, one moderately used, and the last, lightly used. For each of the six areas, we will survey four times in five-hour blocks: 1) from 7:00am-12:00pm on a weekday; 2) from 7:00am-12:00pm on a Saturday; 3) from 12:00pm-5:00pm on a weekday; 4) from 12:00pm-5:00am on a Saturday. These survey times have been selected in an attempt to survey a wide range of visitors, that is, those who arrive during high and low use periods. On survey days, we will set up a safe car cordon system at the selected trailhead that will require all vehicles to slowly pass by. (Resource management agencies like the US Forest Service often use this method for disseminating information to visitors). We will stop every 5 th vehicle and ask the driver if he or she is willing to participate in a short OHV recreation survey, making sure to relate that we are not affiliated with the Forest Service or any other regulatory agency. One of the drawbacks of this survey technique is the fact that we will have no control over the number of potential survey participants we
will encounter. The sample size will depend simply on how many vehicles pass through the trailhead during our sample times.