This is something I hear every now and then in conversations, with more educated and middle/upper class people. That enjoying riding in ATVs is a trashy/redneck hobby. What is so trashy about riding around in fields and the woods in all terrain vehicles?
Nothing.
You seem to think rednecks are trashy. Hang out with some less snobbish people, you might have some fun.
It’s not trashy but it’s something you do in the woods, or in a big ass field, and you often get all muddy or dirty. Most activities where you get that dirty are at least sometimes considered rednecky, because rednecks live places where you can do those types of activities. You can’t ride an ATV in the McMansioned burbs or the city.
The kids in my corner of the neighborhood are definitely not rednecks or trashy, and they can’t get enough of their ATVs. It’s second most annoying neighborhood sound ever, just behind the leaf blower. If we lived anywhere near an HOA, they would be totally banned.
You do need some room for those things, and a bit of money to buy and maintain them. I happen to live in a suburb that’s not McMansioned, so we’ve got both room and recreation money.
ATV’s and their riders don’t need to be trashy. In fact, the new ones are very expensive and you need lots of land to ride them on so the very poor can’t usually afford them. The people that I know that have them usually got them as pretty wealthy spoiled teenagers. It is just an outdoor sport that’s all just like snowmobiling and it requires a certain environment that overlaps with certain types.
We have ATVs, and we’ve gotten attitude from bikers/hikers/etc when we’re on the (ATV-legal) trails. The funny thing is, 90% of the time we’re on the trails, we’re biking and hiking. We just happen to also have ATVs.
Our house backs up to about a gazillion miles of woods filled with trails and dirt roads, so finding places to ride is no problem.
I like 'em, because they extend my range. The woods up here are not nicely mapped or marked, and I have loads of fun exploring areas that are simply too far to go on foot or bicycle.
I don’t use them a lot, but I’d never get rid of mine. It’s way too much fun when you want to get out in the woods but are too lazy to get on the mountain bike.
Dirt bike riders really look down on ATV riders. Their attitude seems to be that ATV guys can’t hack a dirt bike so they take the easy route and use an ATV.
Two fold problem here in my neck of the woods.
First it usually IS rednecks that own em. There are good rednecks with a small r. Then there are BAD rednecks with a capital R. I think you know what I mean here.
These rednecks also lurv them some jetskis too. And there are a reasonable fraction of rednecks that ride jetskis and ATVs around here that are total asses about how they do it, which ruin it for the good guys.
I only know a few families with ATVs. I wouldn’t call them rednecks, but they do share a few things in common: They live in areas with lots of backwoods in which to ride, they let their young kids ride the ATVs unsupervised, they paid thousands of dollars for them but can’t afford to fix the air conditioner or fridge (okay, that’s just one family. And I know, I know, who the hell am I to tell people what their priorities should be? But it’s not just the ATVs, it’s the ATVs and the paintguns and the Wii, XBOX and satellite and the giant trampoline).
Because ATVs show up on “Country Fried Home Videos” all the time, as some guy who’s built a homemade ramp tries to jump over his pool in one.
If you don’t see it, look at the Funniest Home Video or Extreme Accidents videos. All rednecks trying to climb vertical sand dunes. Wearing their redneck sleeveless tees and beer hats.
What you have encountered are known as parvenus. Old money doesn’t worry about the impression they give by riding around in ATVs because when you’re old money, you don’t need to prove to people that you’re rich.
It has to do with the history and/or image of bootlegging. You needed an all-terrain vehicle of some sorts to get through rough patches where you hid your still.
It’s not used for that anymore (hopefully not) but the image for a bit was switched to meth factories, and now those have leveled off (while manufacturing meth moved to Mexico), you still have the historic associations.
I thought that hunters used ATVs to bring their tree stands and stuff out into the woods and bring the derr meat back out. Most of the hunters I know are rednecks. I guess I’ve been reading too many Cabellas catalogs.
**Athena **mentions ATV-legal trails and therein lies the biggest problem to me. There are many trails I have seen that are gated off because they are pedestrian only, or wildlife sanctuaries, or fragile in some way, and there is almost always a path bulldozed around the gate through which ATVs gain access. Block it off and a new path quickly grows. There are plenty of places they can go, but they want to go everywhere, it’s their right. Wanting to do whatevery you want, whenever you want is a common human failing, certainly not restricted to rednecks or ATV riders, but in this case can be quite damaging as seen by the degraded trails and the plants crushed under tires.
Most ATV users are just as pissed about that behavior, as they all get blamed for the hot dogging for a few that think they are special, and most ATVers don’t want the surroundings off the trail ruined either. It’s great to see the DNR or sheriff writing tickets for the people that don’t follow the trail rules.
In fact, "tread lightly!’ has become a typical phrase you say when saying goodbye, much like saying, “stay safe” or “good luck”. (At least among those of us who go offroading in trucks or jeeps, dunno if its the same with ATV riders.)
The men on Mrs. Homie’s side of the family are poster-children for redneckery, and every last one of them owns an ATV or four.
I thought ATVs were associated with rednecks because they are loud, obnoxious, and emit unpleasant fumes. 