Off-road vehicle drivers, who roll for miles along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, could be banished because the Park Service has not marked trails or set rules for them.

A federal judge used the case of a Virginia man driving carelessly to prohibit off-road vehicles from 70 miles of sand. Park Service officials were surprised by the potentially far-reaching ruling, which could affect fishermen, vacationers, endangered birds and turtles and the entire Outer Banks economy. It was unclear when or whether the beaches would be closed to vehicles.

Park Service officials spent Wednesday fielding calls from worried vacationers and said that despite the ruling the beach remains open to off-road vehicles while attorneys for the Department of Interior seek clarification.

"The order does not require us to close the beaches tomorrow," Mark Hardgrove, deputy superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore said in an interview. "While we evaluate the order, we're going to keep the beaches open. It's going to take us the rest of the week to evaluate."

The ruling brings to the fore the long-contentious issue of driving on the national seashore and puts new pressure on the Park Service to settle it. Other parks, particularly in the West, have faced similar conflicts between enthusiasts of vehicles such as snowmobiles and park patrons who seek quiet and solitude. Outer Bankers have been driving cars and trucks on the beach since before the national seashore was created or N.C. 12 paved.

"The whole struggle we have on the Outer Banks is how do you balance jobs and the environment?" said Carolyn McCormick, managing director of Outer Banks Visitors Bureau. "How do you keep the economy going while preserving what makes you great? People come here from all over for the free and open access beach."

Signal to Park Service

Environmentalists say the ruling, signed Tuesday, is a signal to the Park Service to get control of off-road vehicles at the seashore. About 225,000 visitors drive onto the beach each year at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the service estimates.

Fishermen are among the heaviest users of the privilege, steering four-wheel drive vehicles along the strand to their favored fishing spots, some of which are miles from the nearest access ramp. They say it would be impractical to walk hauling fishing gear, bait and ice chests.

One of them is Bill Mandulak, 63, a retired IBM manager who lives in Raleigh. He spends six to eight weeks a year at the Outer Banks, surf fishing with his family and buddies. He has artificial hips and drives his Ford Expedition on the beach.

"To get to Hatteras Inlet from the Coast Guard station, nobody is going to hike down there with their tackle boxes and bait," Mandulak said. "The chances that I would be able to fish any of those spots without being able to drive are very remote."

Mandulak said fishermen were not opposed to closing areas of beach for nesting piping plovers, a threatened sea bird, and endangered sea turtles that nest on sections of the strand. But he said they objected to the amount of beach closed. For example, nearly a mile of beach at Oregon Inlet is closed for a month because piping plovers hatched there in recent days.

Mandulak noted very few of the thousands of beach drivers are cited for trespassing. "There are a few idiots that disregard the law who are ruining it for thousands of people," Mandulak said.

The ruling came out of a careless driving case on the seashore over Memorial Day weekend. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle fined a Virginia man for driving a large four-wheel drive vehicle off the beach and into an area adjacent to the dunes, in an erratic and serpentine manner, endangering people at Bodie Island spit.

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