KINGS MOUNTAIN – A Lincoln County magistrate is concerned with the number of complaints he has received about all-terrain-vehicles that could cause an accident. 

Lincoln County Magistrate Johnnie Padgett said he has received as many as eight or 10 phone calls complaining about the riders on North Fishing Creek Road. 

“There are a lot of ATVs down there coming out of that creek and going straight up in the road,” Padgett said. 

Padgett said the ATV activity usually takes place on weekends. 

“The main concern is that they’re coming straight up out of the creek, it’s just about straight up the hill, there are little trails they’ve cut. And when they come up on the edge of the road, they’ve torn the road up several different times breaking the blacktop off,” Padgett said. 

When the riders come up that hill, they are traveling at such a high rate of speed to make it up the hill that they pop onto the roadway quickly without being able to see whether traffic is coming or not, he said. 

“Somebody is going to hit them, maybe kill somebody,” Padgett said. 

Padgett said on the left side of the road where the creek is located there are about 10 different places where ATVs come up and enter the roadway. 

“They go across the road and there’s a wooded area and now they’ve got trails cut up in that wooded area,” he said. 

The property is private and no one has permission to ride on it, Padgett said. 

Law enforcement has been made aware of the situation, he added.