Off-roading enthusiasts may have to slam the brakes on their beach expeditions after Muscat Municipality cautioned that driving cars and bikes on the beaches posed a serious risk to beachgoers. “Anyone who violates this will be punished by a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two months,” the municipality tweeted on Thursday. One person’s fun may be another person’s nuisance.
Some beach drivers often drive recklessly and without regard for others. This can lead to accidents and injuries. Second, they often leave behind trash and debris. This not only makes the beach look bad, but it can also harm the environment. Their driving can also disturb the peace and quiet of the beach, making it less enjoyable for everyone else.
Many people don’t want vehicles to interfere with their view or their enjoyment of a quiet walk along the ocean. There are also the competing needs of fishers as well as the environmental stress of cars on nesting turtles, birds and other marine life.
And driving itself can damage dunes and other natural formations that protect coastal communities from storms.
These dunes are very effective coastal protection features. They absorb the erosive energy of waves generated by cyclones and storms and are reservoirs of sand to nourish the beach during periods of wave erosion. Vegetation on the dunes traps and holds sand blown from the beach aiding dune build-up and stopping sand from being blown inland and lost from the active beach and dune system.
Dunes with their covering of grasses and other plants are so fragile that even footsteps can damage or kill the plants and weaken the dunes. Driving vehicles on dunes has a worse effect and greatly increases the chance of dune destruction. Vehicle tyres destroy dune vegetation exposing the sand to wind erosion which lowers the dunes and reduces their effectiveness as coastal protection features.
Beach erosion increases because of the lower volume of sand in the dune directly behind the beach.
Beach driving also poses a threat to endangered marine turtles who use this beach as a nesting and hatching site. It also disturbs the delicate ecosystem by killing hatchling sea birds and crabs that live on beaches.
