If you’re heading to Moab or any other popular off-road riding area in Utah in 2023, you’ll need to complete a Utah online training course thanks to a law passed earlier this year. This applies to Utah residents as well as visitors from out of state, for rentals as well as vehicles you own.

Utah House Bill 180 added the online course requirement for all operators age 18 or over. It specifies that the course must contain “education concerning the importance of gates and fences used in agriculture and how to properly close a gate; and education concerning respectful, sustainable, and on-trail off-highway vehicle operation, and respect for communities affected by off-highway vehicle operation.” This is intended to educate riders on how not to annoy local residents, as well as how to tread lightly and stay on designated trails. Requirements for unlicensed operators under 18 are unchanged, with a $35 online skills course or an in-person course and exam. A rider under 18 who has a driver’s license is exempt from this requirement.

The Utah online training course will be available online as of January 1, 2023, with enforcement beginning on Feburary 1, 2023. Operators will need to provide proof that they have completed the course, but exactly how that will happen or be enforced isn’t currently clear. The Utah DNR flyer on the subject says only to “Print or save digital certificate for proof.”

Other provisions of the law define restitution an operator must make if they damage public land. It spells out in detail that the violator must perform community service to fix the exact location they damaged. How much community service they must perform corresponds directly to the monetary value of the damage.

Will It Work?

Clearly, the intention of the Utah online training is to educate riders on how to properly and respectfully enjoy off-road riding, and to penalize those who engage in shenanigans. By requiring his course, riders won’t be able to claim they didn’t know they were riding aggressively or where they aren’t allowed. The hope is that this, rather than shutting down trails, will solve these problems. This is especially important with 437 miles of trails in Moab alone currently at risk of closure.

But how effective will this really be? For my day job, I recently had to take a mandatory online course about internet safety, phishing, and so on. I used to work in IT, and have written documentation on this subject. As a result, I pretty much blew through the course, giving the answers they wanted to hear instead of actually studying the material, because I already knew it. How many off-road riders will treat this course the same way? Many may see this as nothing more than a barrier to having fun, and blow through it just to get it out of the way instead of learning what it has to offer.

Other Changes

Of lesser consequence are some changes to Utah’s vehicle registration requirements. Dedicated off-road vehicles, such as ATVs and UTVs, will be issued license plates rather than registration stickers. Dirt bikes are exempt from this requirement and will continue to be issued registration stickers, probably because they were never designed to have license plates. This includes street legal bikes, which can add an OHV permit sticker to their on-road plate, just like Arizona.

I also found an interesting provision in the existing sections of the law. It reads: “A person may not operate or transport and an owner may not give another person permission to operate or transport any off-highway vehicle on any public land, trail, street, or highway in this state unless the off-highway vehicle is registered under this chapter for the current year” (emphasis mine). As I read this, if I have an unregistered dirt bike in my truck or trailer, it’s illegal to even transport across public roads, even if I never unload it. Is this true? How do those of you in Utah deal with this? I completely understand it being illegal to operate an unregistered vehicle on public roads, but not transporting it in a registered truck or trailer. Let us know how this works in the real world.

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