VASA tells House transportation committee it supports DMV proposal to raise ATV width limit to 72 inches

Tommy O'Connor, a representative of VASA (an ATV and side‑by‑side owners association), told the House Committee on Transportation that VASA supports the Department of Motor Vehicles' proposal to raise the statutory maximum ATV width from 64 inches to 72 inches.

"For us, when the DMV said ... can we be okay with 72 as, like, the threshold?" O'Connor said. "We agreed as the people who are dealing with us on a daily basis and working with these manufacturers, the width change is a safer machine." He added that recent manufacturer designs have increased track width to reduce rollover risk and that newer models in 2025 average about 65 to 70 inches in width.

The change is meant to resolve a registration issue that arose after DMV modernization: vehicle specifications entered into DMV systems flagged some newer machines as wider than the existing 64‑inch statutory limit, preventing consistent registration. Frank Stanley, a lobbyist for the Vermont ATV Association, explained the practical consequence: "If you wanna ride your ATV off of your own property, you have to get it registered ... and you can't get it…