FFS its a greenlane, not a pay n play site....

I am the driver and owner in both those video's (I didn't record or post either but do not object to them being public)

Despite similarities they are two different Range Rovers, both met sticky ends.

The one titled Diff Break Hill was simply named because on a previous visit I shredded a rear diff getting up it and had to reverse all the way back down with front wheel drive only. The trip was purely for fun, to get to a redundant mine at the top of the slag heap, the place is local to me and access is not a problem, nobody else would know where to find it from the video.

The second is on a legal right of way used occasionally by motorcycles, I am led to believe nobody had ever managed to get a 4 wheel vehicle down it before (or since to my knowledge). I wont be specific with its location. Contrary to smart arsed and un-informed opinion, when the video was taken the vehicle was taxed, insured and MOT'd. A rather sweeping presumption on somebodies part there. For information, every panel was damaged, one window was broken and all lights except the headlamps where broken on that lane. For the 200 miles journey home the lights were gaffa taped back together and the panels re-attatched where necessary, I continued to use the Range Rover on the road fully legally for several months after.

Why did I attempt it? simple, somebody bet me it couldn't be done, do I have to explain myself to anybody? no I don't. Was it fun? damn right it was. Was it expensive? probably, I lost about a £100 between buying the Range Rover and selling it on many months later.

For many years I have used Range Rovers to get to difficult and remote places (not least home) without hassle or hindrance, I have never been stopped and I have never upset anybody apart from ramblers who seem to believe they have the right to be obnoxious. I travel many places that have 4x4 and motorcycle bans, I care not. I am completely unrepentant and don't give a fig. I don't trespass on private land (if I want to cross it, I ask, usually without a problem) but I do consider public owned land fair game. As for anti's, I could not care less. Terrible attitude isn't it? Round here, the odd person travelling across the fell in a Range Rover is not a problem, convoy's of vehicles in organised groups are extremely unpopular. I avoid shooting land in season and leave little trace of my passing. I know many of the local gamekeepers and never have any problems. So you may all consider yourselves as having had a quiet word, you may also consider yourself firmly rebuffed. Perhaps assumption should play no part in comments made about the activities of those you do not know?

Maybe assumptions should not be made but you have really exposed yourself here as a very selfish and arrogant individual. What you do to your own car is your business but your attitude towards the laws of access and rights of way are contemptable. No wonder the ramblers and antis complain, you are spoling it for everyone else by your reckless and inconsiderate actions. You may not care what they think but the majority of us who enjoy recreational

4x4 use are fighting every day to keep the rights of way driveable and stuff like this just makes me despair.

I'm not quite clear on what you mean here, do you mean that if an area does not have vehicular rights, you'd just drive it anyway? That's what the words say but on the one hand you state ways in which you avoid pissing people off so this doesn't quite fit in. Ditto your comments on regarding public land as "fair game".

I dont think its the fact that you drove it, or damaged your rangie on it - Its more the state of the lane after. The fact that walls were knocked over will piss people off the most..

Thats one thing that the 'antis' will mount their high horses about.

If they see it, god knows where it will end up - All over the telly probably.

"This video has been removed by the user"

Probably for the best.

David

The video is slightly deceiving regarding the state of the walls, the reason that such odd angles occured was simply because the walls have allready collapsed at the bottom. In places the land is six feet deep and in places the walls have collapsed into the lane at the bottom, the bracken does a good job of hiding this both in real life and in the video. So yes although some damage was done to the wall, nowhere near as much as it appears and efforts where made to make sure as much as possible was put back. Local opinion was simply one of amusement, nobody was bothered, no foul was committed and the only one to loose out was me. As for my other comments, confusing as they may seem to you, they are absolutely correct. I go where I please and never get any hassle for it, be it wandering over the lakeland fells or up in the Pennines. I also do much the same in Wales. If I plan to cross private land I ask the landowner, if its publically owned (Forrestry Commission or National Park etc) I simply quietly go about my business. I have only once been refused access ( across a private estate), no big deal for either party. Perhaps its because I'm local, not sure but I experience non of the problems you talk of with anti's. The only people who ever begrudge my presence are fell walkers, tourists to a man (or woman) and quite frankly their opinion doesn't matter. Seem to get upset when told that though! Most simply react with surprise to find a Range Rover up ontop of the fells, usually amusement too.

In message , snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com writes

You say:

but that doesn't seem to tally with your statement in your first posting that: 'For the 200 miles journey home the lights were gaffa taped back together and the panels re-attatched (sic) where necessary'.

Personally I'm in two minds about it all, what you're doing is what ideally we'd all be able to do, after all as long as you're not making a total mess in places then what you're doing is non-damaging off-roading, the only thing that makes that wrong is the legal issue, which is unfairly stacked against us. In the U.S. as I understand it people are banned from driving in specific areas, rather than banned from everywhere and only allowed in specific areas as it is here.

What is wrong about what you're doing is that you're fuelling the unfair arguments that are being put against us, and that's where the tourists and fell walkers come in, they've got mouths and they like to use them. It's a shitty situation and 100% unfair on us, so "f*ck 'em I'm not doing any harm" is tempting, but on the other, adding fuel to the fire isn't going to help.

So while we're not going to change what you're doing (and indeed some of us might end up doing similar if things get any worse for us), please at least don't encourage others to join in, from your own perspective the good will you seem to get would go out the window pretty quickly if others start doing what you say you're doing.

Getting permission to go across the land is another matter though, no-one can have issues with that, it's just the public land that'll cause trouble. Personally I think we *should* be able to go across public/NT land if it can sustain it, but the tourists/fell walkers have more mouths than we do.

To be absolutely honest, asides from scowls of ramblers, this is the

1st time I have had any adverse comment about what I do. Generally I keep a very low profile, if I am told by a landowner he doesn't want me to cross his land I don't. I have driven past National Park Rangers many times, never with any problem. I have only been questioned by one once and he was fine, probably because I had a reasonable excuse for being there and no harm was being done. Sorry I missed the earlier comment about being local and travelling 200 miles, I live in the North Pennines and local to the Lake District so in these areas it is possible that speaking with the right accent helps. Hence nobody local batted an eyelid at the Diff Break Hill footage. I appreciate the point about bad publicity (and this is probably why the video's where pulled from youtube, I will ask the friend who posted them). The biggest problem for off-roaders around here is organised groups, single vehicles rarely raise an eyebrow (as long as you stay clear of Grouse moors etc at appropriate times of year) A lot of my off road travels are to get to dis-used mines, my favoured pastime is heading off underground, usually when I explain where and why I want to go somewhere nobody objects. It regularly becomes a spectator sport watching me get to silly places.

Generally speaking if you quietly go about your business in a responsible manner nobody is in the least bit bothered. Sadly I am sure that if somebody with a home counties accent where to try it here then they would be greeted un-favourably. Often I am accompanied friends from down south, on these occasions it is often necessary for them to stay in the Range Rover and not speak. Landowners greatest fear seems to be that if they allow one person they are setting a precedent and will have hoards of 4x4's ploughing their land up every weekend. The other big problem round here is trail bikes (and mountain bikes to some extent) coming up from the city and being abusive to gamekeepers and landowners.

Ramblers scowl at mountain rescue landies! Daft shites.

I think going down abandoned mines is a reasonable excuse for having you sectioned under the mental health act ;-)

That's the biggest complaint that everyone has, even those of us in this group, they're a real problem in Wales for sure, and I'll bet in other areas of the country. 3 is fine, 4 is iffy, 20 or so is crap, and tales of 50 vehicle convoys are believable. It would be nice if the companies in question would either sod off, or very visibly contribute to repairs of the lanes they use for monetary gain.

Balloonists often go zipping about on private land in landies to get to the balloon that's come down, landowners still moan about them, but some landowners moan about anyone even looking at their land! ISTR there being some legal thing that allows balloonists to gain access, something a balloonist said to me once. I suppose they'd have to be able to get to the balloonist to make sure they've not come down somewhere really bad.

Perhaps that's where you live, many years ago out in Berkshire there were two lanes I was driving, joining them was a stretch of disused railtrack that had been tarmaced over, it didn't have vehicular rights but it was tarmaced and in excellent condition so I drove the 200 feet down it rather than go a mile round-trip on the road. Someone on a quad bike came up bellowing about trespassing and the "law of the countryside" as he put it, it's a fecking tarmac strip!! While legally I was in the wrong, there is such a thing as taking it too far. There weren't any tyre marks on it so it was hardly a rat-run.

There's some validity in the fear of hordes of 4x4 users, but mostly it's just the standard moan of the jobsworth, "I can't let you do that, what if everyone did it".

I've had that from people on some lanes I've driven that haven't seen a vehicle in probably 10 years, one I travelled was through woodland so tight I had to use my high-lift jack several times to prise some trees apart to get through. A woman in a nearby house who'd parked her car on the lane entrance moaned at me telling me that she didn't think I should go down there as she didn't want plagues of 4x4 users wrecking the area. Given that the lane's been on the OS map for donkey's years I have no idea why she thought that I was the first of the raping, pillaging horde to descend on her. I've seen similar from other people in that area on a few occasions, they stopped moaning when the hordes never descended and now I don't live there any more I'll bet the lanes are now overgrown again.

It's our Just and Tolerant Society innit.

That last point is a good one - most land owners will put up will light use of lanes becuase that's the way it is. But when someone is making money out using those lanes, they (quite rightly in my book) start asking "Where's my cut? Why should I maintain a road to profit someone else?". My personal hobby-horse (one a very, very many!) is The Magazines, and from their own photo's, their large convoys (unless, of course, they are just using the photo's to get more customers). If they truly "care" about their readers and off-roading, why are they not pointing out that one should join a club, for a one off annual, usually pretty nominal, fee and then they can go for free (in small groups), rather than being chagred a quite large sum for a single day.

I've heard them say that too - but the upshot is that they cannot go on someones land without permission (this came up in a discussion about run-away carriages (horse & carts)) - and even with permission they should not be surprised to be charged a "reasonable" amount - in fact their governing body, whatever it's called, recommends offering a payment if necessary I'm led to believe. That apparently even applies to utility companies where they have no prior agreements (usually there is a prescribed route to a pylon or whatever).

To be fair to her, she may well not have known that there was a lane there, assuming it was a footpath or simply disused. Some time back I looked at buying some land, and from the clues (the first tramaced bit being called Cheadle Road, and it heading towards Cheadle) it looked very much like it had a lane on it. I asked the agent about it. He was very, very, reluctant to admit that it was "quite likely" a lane. I doubt a solicitor would have though of checking either during conveyencing, unless prompted. I can sympathise with someone that happens too. A lane near Hartington springs to mind - it hadn't been driven for some time, and when we did we emerged on to a realitive recently laid pristine lawn, put down by the new owners! [1]

Richard

[1] and it's not just lanes - accoring to the deeds and the land registry we were about to buy a house which didn't own the bathroom! Sorted out now, but the house had been sold many times like this.

That's what people tell me about cave diving. However, why else would I need a P38 if I wasn't scuba diving in abandoned, flooded mines? You just need a sense of perspective.

And having lots of compressed air about is handy when you need to top-up the air suspension.

nigelH

ISTR

Right up to where you turn up at an MoD site and demand access...

By the way...

Utility companies pay...

Well, she certainly didn't say anything when I told her it was a byway she'd parked on and didn't deny that it had vehicular rights, just moaned about "lots of 4x4s" appearing from nowhere and murdering all the bunnies.

Even if it wasn't marked up as a lane on the maps, that's a real indicator of a lost lane that could be resurrected by someone poking around the records office. You see quite a few of these, roads that go straight then suddenly veer off but in a direct line of the straight bit there's a farm track heading in the same direction, usually a good candidate for some map research.

There was a byway near a house I used to live in, I decided to drive it and ended up at the edge of someone's lawn. On the other side of the lawn was a gate that lead into the woods where the lane was supposed to continue. I saw someone in another part of the garden and asked her about it and she told me to carry on and go straight across! I went back to the truck, ummed and aahed, then went back to her and asked her if she'd realised I was in a truck... She hadn't realised and told me the lane had been downgraded that year to a bridleway due to a church at the other end or something like that. I'll bet she'll be more careful next time ;-)

I never looked into it any further as it was one of those "right on my own doorstep" jobs.

Walking down holes in the ground dressed in rubber with your head in a bowl and two bombs strapped to your back doesn't bode well for the health of your mind ;-)

Diving's OK. It's the P38 that makes me doubt my sanity at times. I'm currently rechipping the EAS in a desperate attempt to get a fix that stays fixed.

nigelH

I suggest you check up on the definition of national Parks in the UK. It has absoltuely nothing to do with public ownership of the land.

Out of complete interest, how did you hear that there was a tread about it on AFL?

On or around Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:40:18 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

private land is a completely separate issue, and indeed pretty much all off-roading is liable to end up like this if we're not careful.

I admit, myself, to having in the past driven routes which the status is not defined on the map. I haven't actually checked the definitive map - there are no signs on it and I'd not pass a "road closed" sign on a lane since that's an obvious indication of a TRO or similar. Such lanes as I have driven were in good condition though and I didn't cause damage, nor did we have a huge group - the largest group of us was 3.

On or around Fri, 24 Nov 2006 13:54:36 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

oooh, no, that's fun.