Why did they stop making 3 wheelers?

[guidi]

I can't find the whole story, I've looked everywhere. Does anyone know officially why they stopped making the best atv's ever created?

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Can I answer with a true and candid answer?

Basically the tree hugging liberal/socialist (mostly democrat) types of people that hate cars/3 wheelers/4 wheelers/ motorcycles etc. and they look for reasons to get rid of them. Everything from stiff emissions standards to forcing high insurance rates to stop people from being able to own what they love most.

To make a long story short, they were able to convince the government and a lot of people in general that 3 wheelers were very unstable and prone to wreck easily and they claimed 3 wheelers are dangerous enough that they should be banned and illegal to sell.

After a handful of exaggerated claims, phony testimonies and stories from people who were hurt because of careless riding, they convinced the government to outlaw them.

Originally the government put a 10 year ban (correct me if I'm wrong anybody) on the sale of NEW 3 wheel atv's. But it was enough to make companies give up making them and now the companies simply haven't looked back.

Now we get to battle the same crowd to try to be able to keep our 2 strokes. We seem to be losing this one too.

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Here is an article from Time Magazine from Jan 11 1988. It is titled "Outlawing a Three-Wheeler'

On countless occasions the Government has ordered defective autos and trucks recalled. But last week the Justice Department, backed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, went a long step beyond that. In an unprecedented action, it outlawed future sales of an entire mode of transportation: three-wheel all- terrain vehicles.

The rugged gasoline-powered machines, which also come in four-wheel models, look something like a cross between a motorcycle and a dune buggy. Costing an average of $2,000, they can cruise up to 50 m.p.h. and negotiate some of the toughest terrain around, from sand dunes and rock-strewn hills to marshy lowlands. They are also exceedingly dangerous. Nearly 7,000 people are injured in ATV accidents each month, and an estimated 900 people have been killed over the past five years. Many of the victims are young children, who do not need a license to drive ATVs because they are designed for off-road use. The ATV manufacturers, which include Honda and Kawasaki, agreed to the ban but continue to insist that the bikes are safe if ridden properly.

As stern as the Government's action was, ATV critics are not satisfied. Consumer groups and some Congressmen contend that Washington should recall all of the 1.5 million three-wheel ATVs still in use in the U.S. and force manufacturers to give purchasers a refund. Says James Florio, Democratic Congressman from New Jersey: "How can anyone truly concerned with safety in effect say 'Tough luck' to people who currently own these unsafe vehicles?" Government officials defend their action, maintaining that a recall would cause a lengthy court battle.

May I go on record to say that I don't need some socialist A-hole like James Florio telling me what is good for me and what isn't. Plus, when it talks about children who were getting hurt, WHY WERE UNTRAINED CHILDREN RIDING 3 WHEELERS??????

I better stop before I get on an "I hate democrats" rant. lol

[WaimakRydah]

It is such a shame they outlawed them. Its the riders choice of what they purchase. Just like smoking which is way more dangerous then riding a 3 wheeler but yet the government still allow them to be sold in convinience stores next to essential items like food

[oscarmayer]

word............

[SWIGIN]

It is such a shame they outlawed them. Its the riders choice of what they purchase. Just like smoking which is way more dangerous then riding a 3 wheeler but yet the government still allow them to be sold in convinience stores next to essential items like food

the part that no one talks about is the fact that trikes were on the way out anyway, quads were the new thing and trike only had a few years at best before dieing off.

if you were old enough back then to remeber all this, think about it..... even quads wernt selling that great.

oh...and that last part of that time magazine artical.....you have no idea how close we were to them coming to our homes and taking them by force!'

my uncle actualy got his recall papers in the mail.....think about that.....the government coming and taking your trike.

you all can say '' i wouldnt give it up'' or whatever but it was a real thing with real jail time or whatever if you didnt comply....the truth is you dont know what you would do till its time to do it.

[oscarmayer]

i can promsie you i woudl not give something up because some maker or anyone tells me too. it's not liek your a criminal. they will have a hard time wanting to send you to jail with a trial by jury over not turnign in your trike you paid for and own.

[SWIGIN]

it wasnt a ''maker'' it was the government that sent out the papers and by not complying you are now a criminal....so jail could be a real thing

like i said you dont know till you know

[Hoosier_Daddy]

the part that no one talks about is the fact that trikes were on the way out anyway, quads were the new thing and trike only had a few years at best before dieing off.

if you were old enough back then to remeber all this, think about it..... even quads wernt selling that great.

oh...and that last part of that time magazine artical.....you have no idea how close we were to them coming to our homes and taking them by force!'

my uncle actualy got his recall papers in the mail.....think about that.....the government coming and taking your trike.

you all can say '' i wouldnt give it up'' or whatever but it was a real thing with real jail time or whatever if you didnt comply....the truth is you dont know what you would do till its time to do it.

Yes, I lived through it. I was a teenager through all that crap. And the government wasn't going to force us to give up our trikes with a punishment if we didn't do it. The government was simply trying to force the companies to recall them. Meaning anybody who decided to take their "dangerous" 3 wheeler back to get their money back could do so. We weren't going to be "forced" to give them back. The government could never get away with such a thing. And as you see they didn't.

[SWIGIN]

you have it all wrong

the gov DID send out papers for a complete recall....but that idea got shot down before it realy got started....fact

[SWIGIN]

look........every now and then someone brings this subject up and of course since we all think alike we all say things like .... not me ...or... i wouldnt have gave mine up.


but how many would of realy gone through with it?

at the time i was in the same frame of mind as you all, but now that im older that whole thing COULD have became real ugly and most people dont know how close we realy came to a totale recall

and the statement that the ''ban'' killed trikes is false...the handwriteing was on the wall already

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Yes, they sent papers for a recall. The government was stopped short of forcing the recall. But a recall only means that the company has to repair/replace/or refund money for a faulty part or component. In this case the entire bike.

Anybody who didn't want to participate in the recall would not have HAD to. They could simply ignore it and keep their trikes.

Same with any auto manufacture recall. If Ford issues a recall for a faulty fuel pump, the customer can go get it replaced or fixed at no charge. If the customer chooses not to get it fixed, they don't go to jail, they just simply miss out on getting the part fixed for free.

The recall for the trikes was for anybody who feared their trike was dangerous and wanted to get a refund, the companies would have been forced to refund the customers money and take back the trike. Anybody who chose to keep their trikes would not have been punished or put in jail. They would only have missed out on the refund for their trike.

[SWIGIN]

are you sure?

this is why it didnt happen.....the paper had a date of when they were coming to take his atc200...TAKE, not take if you will let us

you can read into it all you want but back just over 20 years ago i seen this paper and it was no joke.

the plan was to get all trikes and destroy them and pay the owner a fraction of what they were worth...beleive it or not, it almost happend

this is way it didnt happen.....to big of a problem and not worth the fight on there end


edit.... the papers were not from honda or any of the big 4...it was from the feds

[Hoosier_Daddy]

are you sure?

this is why it didnt happen.....the paper had a date of when they were coming to take his atc200...TAKE, not take if you will let us

you can read into it all you want but back just over 20 years ago i seen this paper and it was no joke.

the plan was to get all trikes and destroy them and pay the owner a fraction of what they were worth...beleive it or not, it almost happend

this is way it didnt happen.....to big of a problem and not worth the fight on there end


edit.... the papers were not from honda or any of the big 4...it was from the feds

If the democrats were planning on trying to take trikes away from citizens their is no way they could have gotten away with it. That is unconstitutional ( I know the government does unconstitutional things all the time) and that would have been waaaaay over their boundries. That's why they tried to issue the recall instead. But the citizens would not have put up with that sort of thing and it never got passed. That is why it never happened.

I don't recall anything about the governemnt forcing us to give back the trikes or be punished but I do remember them trying the recall and as far as i know, it was just a recall for people who wanted to participate. If I'm wrong someone can correct me but I remember it all pretty well.

[Bad Karma]

Can I answer with a true and candid answer?

Basically the tree hugging liberal/socialist (mostly democrat) types of people that hate cars/3 wheelers/4 wheelers/ motorcycles etc. and they look for reasons to get rid of them. Everything from stiff emissions standards to forcing high insurance rates to stop people from being able to own what they love most.

Amen, brother! That's why gas prices are so high. The libs won't allow new drilling, new refineries, and new nuclear plants.

They are forcing us to do what they want, because they are SOOOO much smarter than us dumb rubes...


I was there in the '80s, a teenager then, and I don't remember 3-wheelers being on the way out at all. It was all good until the signs of what was coming became clearer. Race tracks couldn't get insurance for trike races, so the races dried up fast.

Without racing to push the development of new products, everything just kind of ground to a halt. Why would Honda have the ATC500R in development if trikes were on the way out anyway?