Local 10yr old boy killed in atv accident.

[speed20]

I dont have the article, or i would post it....but my sister was telling me about it.... I guess a 10yr old boy was on a 4 wheeler with his sister, and was going up a hill by i believe Blue Bridge in Monroeville Ohio, the atv tipped over and landed on him, his sister pushed it off of him, and yelled for the dad to come down (he was at the top of the hill) so he came down and did cardiovascular respiration (CPR) but was unable to get him to breath.....Dr. Harwood (well known doctor around here) said he most likely died from chest trauma, but he is not sure...He was wearing a helmet.


I personally think if you are under the age of 16 (since you must be 16 or older to ride atv's) that you should be REQUIRED to pass a safety course for riding an atv, and also obtain a liscense/card that specifies that you have passed the course, along with your name, address, person to notify incase of accident, and that kind of stuff.....How would i go about having this brought up to the courts or whatever??? I also need to notify the parents or some family of the boys so i can send money and a card.

[speed20]

sorry about the post in the Trike forum....thought i was in the OPEN FORUM

[Jeb]

That's terrible. It's a damn shame tragic accidents like that have to happen. Obviously he was riding a machine way too big for him on terrain out of his capabilities as a rider as well as riding double. For God sakes he was only 10 years old! It was probably some big, auto-tranny utility quad. I have a 9 year old and wouldn't dream of turning her loose on any full size ATV no matter how easy to ride or anything that could carry two people for that matter! Was the sister older or younger?? maybe the father thought the sister would be in control. bad mistake.

No government restrictions, licensing, or other BS can stop stuff like this from happening. It's the fault of the parent who chose to let him ride it. Now they pay the ultimate price and the rest of us may pay for their lack of parenting. Parents need to realize ATVs are dangerous in the hands of most children. Very sad and totally preventable.

[cmracer15]

yah that is a shame. Like spped said, that would be pretty neat if the courts made you take a course to get a license..but i am talking for EVERYONE...i dont know about you but i know quite a few OLDER then 16 that have no buisness on a larger quad. Just some people dont have the skill nor the knowledge to be riding one..they dont look where there going,they go at speeds they cant handle,and do stupid things like climb hills that are to steep for them. As a matter of fact just the other day i saw this kid that had no buisness driving..he didnt realy even know how to shift..he was on a brand new honda 350 rancher..and he had 3 other boys on it with him..yepp..thats 3 on the seat and one on the front racks,no hemlets,flying through the woods about 40 mph. If the courts would make everyone go take a atv test,just like a drivers license..i think this would eliminate SOME of the injuries that occur..but like jeb said..there would still be thousands that ride on private property that have no busniess on them. What realy sucks..is after an accident like this, some idiot parent gets the nerve to press charges against the quad manufacturer and WINS!!!! for an unstable machine..COME ON!!! thats what got trikes banned..idiot people that get there foot caugh in a rear tire, or idiot people that go 60 and turn and flip the dang thing because they dont know how to LEAN over!..but hey..were in america, this is the crap we have to deal with.

sorry bout the length this just piss's me off when i hear about this kinda stuff.

[NOS_350X]

speed20 cali tryed the test thing a long time ago but i dont know much about it just from the things my dad and bros say about it but basicaly you had to pay $120 to take this 6 hour boring as hell class to get a card that no one would ever ask you to see it dosent work because of the all diffrent levels of skill now i think before you go to the rideing area thye should be able to check you so see if you have the skills they do that in the desert kinda but not skill just legality of the bikes you ride if its not a green sticker (regstered) or spark arester

[speed20]

Personally.....if the States or whatever want to LOWER or try to lower the amount of Recreational wrecks....they would provide the course free of charge....If you fail to go to the course....you should be somehow punished....if family things occur...you should be able to make it up...but really there should be no excuses...just my .2 cents

[KASEY]

i was riding the dunes this weekend, coos bay, i stopped in at sandlake on my way home. i was very suprized to see a very little kid on a ATC 250R . i know that he wasn't more than 80lbs. way to small for a 250.. of course i had to say something!!! his dad says ,,,of course !! "he handles that thing just fine" i say yeah right he isn't 5' tall either,,, i leave shaking my head saying out loud ,,,,"THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T BUY NEW 3WHEELERS ,, YOU NEED TO GET A CLUE!!!! HE SAYS YOU NEED TO GET A LIFE ! THEN I GOT MAD SO I GOT EVEN ,,, without proper training a preteen cannot ride anything over i think its like 100cc's so i visited with the rangerto verify this ,,, when i left my wayward finger just seemed to point in the direction of a way to young kid on a way to fast trike!!!!!

if we all play by the rulz we will be able to play longer!!!!!!!

[ATC crazy]

There is one A-hole who'll be going to his childs funeral. :evil: :(

[atc250r]

Check this out for a novel idea...Politicians seem too dumd to think of it but what a cost savings it would be.

In Ma, we are required to register our bikes but have no where legal to ride. Kind of an oxymoron. So, this begs the simple question where is all that money going?

As it should be a matter of public record I am going to try and hunt down that budget and see what is happening to it. The registry cops are going to love me! :twisted:

I haven't registered my bike in years because of this though. The last time I did stop for a registry cop he told me "I don't care if you have a place to ride or not, just get that thing registered or we'll takle it!" I did a quite F-off and have never stopped for them since.

I would gladly register my bike if I had a place to ride. So here's the idea.

Take money from registrations and maintain actuall places to ride by state that have the input from ATVers so we can actually have a decent place to ride other than a mile flat oval.

Then provide people to monitor these spots as the enviornmental police already do. Then a requirement is put in place that in oredr to be able to use the area you have to be of a certain skill level. Wether it is dunning, motocross, flat track woods or what have you. This provides additional revenue to maintain the areas and open new areas as to use each area you would have to pass a new level of proficiency. Just like getting a drivers license. In this way it helps to maintain itself and riders could even help police the areas as we are all probably pretty good at anyway if we see someone doing something stupid.
We have precious little space to ride in as it is and don't want to lose more.

It would take a substantial investment from the government to start, but it is much better than litigation, would be in the best interests of the industry, might engender support from the factories and would lessen costs in the long term. Help satisfy both sides, and provide a better standard. There will always be those who will break the laws but that's true in anything.

What do you guys think?

[TimSr]

Tragedies like this are so horrible that it goes without saying, but I am also horrified and frightened at some of the knee jerk reactions that having a bunch more restrictive regulations are necessary without even trying to relate them to the tragedy at hand. Creating another mutimillion/billion dollar bureaucracy for the purpose of collecting fees for licensing and registration, and training courses would eliminate these tragedies how? This was a child, who obviously was riding a quad way too large with the blessings of his father. Are you suggesting that had the kid had proper ATV training or a license, and had "known better", and his father put him on it, he would not have gone? Or do you really think that if it were illegal for kids to ride without a license, this irresponsible father would have respected and obeyed such a law? Does anybody really think that if they had asked this guy on any sort of training test, if its okay for small children to ride adult ATVs, that he really would not have known the correct answer? By the way, drivers licenses for cars are only required if you operate one in a public place because of the threats posed to OTHERS. It is legal in most states for unlicensed children to drive cars on private property not open to the public such as in fields, and its common practice in family farm country.

CPSC has made a major mistake, which also leads the public in the same direction, to try to somehow look at cc's vs age when both are totally irrelevant. Had this quad had an 80cc motor, would it have been any safer? Of course not, in fact probaly MORE dangerous when you find you dont have the power to make a hill. Similar problems with age. Skill levels vary greatly at any given age, but even more relevant is that physical size varies greatly at any age. The other major mistake is that too much effort is put into eliminating crashes which absolutely cannot be done. Has anybody ever ridden for any length of time without flipping or rolling? This is why you have an idiot putting a child on a 250R saying "he can handle it". If you ask yourself what the likely outcome is when (not if) he rolls it, youll realize that his chances are much better on lighter machine. Of course, you take another kid, the same age, but being 5'6" and 110 lbs and it might be more suitable with adequate experience. Its the size of the child, and the weight of the machine that are the real danger factors. If an 80 lb kid rolls a 225 lbs quad at 15mph or rolls a 600 lbs utility at 5mph, which is likely to have a better outcome.

Ive always felt that the govt has no business making laws for out own protection, if we are adults. We have to right to whatever risk we wish to ourselves. The govt can only step in when we put others in danger. In my book that would include idiot parents who endanger their own children. What I fear though is that as usual, when the govt tries to regulate, they screw things up worse. This is obvious by the current age/ cc recommendations. If they do it sensibly, by regulating what weight of an ATV (not how many cc's) a child could ride, based on the childs weight (NOT age), I would support it as being law, even though I doubt this father would have observed it. However if the laws were realistic, and a public ad compaign launched "educating" the public about the difference between rolling over a large quad vs a small one, maybe parents would at least think about the weight factor instead of concentrating on whether or not they can "handle" the engine.
Had this kid flipped a mini quad proportional to his physical size, its unlikely it would have had the same outcome. I have no doubt that TimJr can "handle" a Honda Recon, but at 77 lbs I want him on his Raptor 80 when he ends up under it, which I assume he will. (and has) Its got nothing to do with skill level or how fast it is.
Bottom line, its the dead weight of the machine not the engine size, and its the size of the child, and not his age or skill level. If they would restrict children and ATVs based on a machine weight:child weight formula, I would support it. Based on age vs cc's, I already have seen how bad they screwed that one up.
When tragedy happens, please think about your suggestions, and whether they really would have preveted the tragedy. Politicinas love to spend our money on a lot of knee jerk reaction programs that would not have prevented the tragedy that inspired all the new laws and regulations. Look beyond "what caused the accident" in situations where accidents are likley to happen, (normal riding) and concentrate on what made the results of the accident so devastating. This one is not complicated. Right quad for the right kid, and he has teh same roll, but gets up and gives it another try.

[ATC crazy]

Boy...If they went by weight I could ride a 900EX... :D

Seriously though...A 10 year old kid, say 90lbs, can't buy a Yamaha Breeze 125. BUT they CAN buy a 2001 Honda CR500R or a YZ426F. :rolleyes:

Thats BS.

I'd support the drivers license thing, which would be based on rider skill...AND how they would fit on the machine. Obviously we wouldn't want a 3' tall 15 year old on a Grizzly just because he has the skill.

[J.D.]

Seriously though...A 10 year old kid, say 90lbs, can't buy a Yamaha Breeze 125. BUT they CAN buy a 2001 Honda CR500R or a YZ426F. :rolleyes:


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