RobbieIG

Sounds like you get it just fine.

Or is your question more towards "why would they do it?" Well, then your confusion might come from your use of the word "premeditated", it implies far more thinking than was probably involved. I would tend to think that most of these are set by people with no capacity for empathy (immature or just stupid), or they are set by psychopaths who's thinking is so different from you or I that the process of premeditation would be so different that we could never understand.

notfred

The amount of environment damage caused by all mountains bikers (responsible and irresponsible alike) over the course of history is still probably less damage than was caused by building the few miles of roadway that you ride everyday on your commute.

There is very little actual damage caused by trail erosion. Do the animals in the woods care if thier trail is a few inches lower than before? Not so much. Does a mountain bike trail block wildlife from being able to cross it like an interstate highway? No. Does some trail erosion destroy forests? Maybe a couple of trees have died from thier roots being exposed.

The damamge that mountain bikes cause is cosmetic. Hikers complain that the trail isn't as pretty as it used to be, but in terms of ecological damage, it's extremely minor.

In contrast, building a 10 mile long road so that you can ride your bike to work requires tearing up hundreds of acres of wilderness to build a quarry where the sand and rock for the road can be extracted. It requires factories and mines to be built so that giant pollution-spewing trucks can be made to haul that rock to the location of the proposed road. It requires giant tractors to bulldoze a path 100 feet wide, tearing out all the trees and wildlife of all sorts for that 10 mile stretch of road.

Anyone who rides a bike on an asphalt road and complains about mountain bikes on trails causing ecological damage doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.

vrkelley

They do it because they can. Who's going to prove that a guy set a trap like that? Cops have "more important things to do"

biodiesel

Last i heard and it's locally interpreted, placing a trap with the intent to injure IS premeditated and is usually charged as a class D felony. Plus many times it would be also charges with other felonies. A wire at neck level is intended to cause grave injury or death and is no different to placeing an explosive device in a school. Might be my kid decappitated by some idiots misplaced vengance.
I ever see one i'm going to make such a stink the FBI is fingerprinting the damn thing. Deadly booby traps can fall under federal anti terrorism laws!