Four Wheels Bad: The Law On Quad Bikes

Whilst we all know what hunts are using quad bikes for – the terrier boxes on the front along with digging equipment being a dead giveaway – there’s no plausible excuse to have terrier men on a so called “trail hunt”, there is still some confusion from the general public who comment on our posts as to the legality of the use of quads. This post answers some of these concerns.

On 1st November 2023 it became law that anyone operating an all terrain vehicle for work purposes will have to undertake accredited training, and will be required to wear a helmet. However, just to cause more confusion, it would appear that the law changes apply to forestry and farming work, but not to hunts. On the day the law change came into effect we asked the Chief of a Rural Crime Team if this law change would apply to hunts. And guess what? He didn’t know, but said he’d get back to us, we’re still waiting.

Using quad bikes on the road?

The GOV.UK website states these rules, which seem to be common sense.

GOV.UK say:

“You must register your quad bike with the DVLA and the bike must have front and rear number plates.”

Our view: You can check most of the reg plates on the DVLA’s website and most of them come back as legally registered and roadworthy. However some of these quads haven’t got reg plates at all, let alone one on the front and rear, and a lot of the quads with plates have them deliberately obscured, usually with mud.

Another blatant infringement of the law you’re likely to see at any hunt is quads carrying passengers on public roads.

GOV.UK says

“A quad bike can only carry passengers if it is designed to do so and has the right number of seats. Check with the manufacturer if you’re not sure.”

Our view: The fact is that two seater quads are actually rare, almost all the quads used at hunts are the standard one seater and therefore should not be carrying any passengers, but up and down the country week in week out you’ll find one seater quads carrying passengers, sometimes even more than one.

What are the police doing about this? Well not enough, there’s cases of the police pulling over these overloaded quads, however it’s going on at practically every hunt meet. In one case we know of, the Rural Crime Team went to a hunt kennels prior to the hunting season starting and told the hunt that they’d be cracking down on one seater quads carrying passengers.

That particular hunt kept to this law whilst sabs were about, the passenger would get off the back of the quad (if sabs were there) when the quad approached public roads, and the passenger would walk down the road to where the quad would re-enter private land. The hunt kept this charade up for most of the season, but once they got bored of it, and sabs pointed this out to the police they just weren’t interested.

The use of quads on private land as with other vehicles is a different matter with the law. Providing they have permission from the landowner to be on the private land, then the laws of the road do not apply. The quad does not need to be roadworthy, it does not need number plates and they are permitted to carry passengers.

Of course hunts can still find ways of breaking the law here, trespassing on private land with a quad being an obvious one. Quads should also not be used on council owned public footpaths, however they often are, creating a hazard for members of the public walking these footpaths and also ripping them up and making a mess of them in doing so.

It’s typical that on private land or public footpaths is where crimes using a quad are committed. Terrier men will see this opportunity to use the quads as a weapon, to ever drive in a threatening manner in an attempt to intimidate sabs, or indeed to actually assault sabs by driving into them.

Call to Action!

We are calling on the help of the public: if you suspect hunts are illegally misusing quads then, when possible, collect video evidence, mobile phones are great for this, and report it to the local police for that area.

We are also calling on the police to finally take some action against illegally driven quads. Come on, you can’t let them get away with everything.