Honestly...I would say its how crazy you are on them...theoryetically I would say four wheels is safer then two..but I have a quad and two dirtbikes...its true that I do wreck more on the dirtbike or loose control of it but the wrecks arn't really severe....the quad I wreck less but when I do wreck its a lot ruffer then a dirtbike...the truth is..anything is dangerous...you just have to respect whatever machine you have ride to your skill level

 

atv

 

I'm not touching this one!

 

The question is would you rather have a 400 lb hunk of metal on you or a 200 roughly lb hunk of metal. I personaly think that the dirtbike is harder but is also safer. Less chance of death. Numbers show that too!

 

depends on where and how you ride. quads are safer at high speeds and small jumps. bikes are alot safer in tippy or un even ground as well as the bigger jumps, if used well. i started on a bike, but enjoy the quad much more. if you know how to use a quad than i would say that it would be safer than a bike.

a machine is only as safe as the rider on it.

 

eggzactly

 

the simple answer is neither!!! if you're riding up STEEP hills and the quads tips back, it tumbles down the hill, the bike will just stay on the side of the hill, but bikes are also alot harder to learn to ride, and are lighter (easyer to wheelie) and quadracer13 is correct, you can (most likely) go faster on the dirtbike and thus get into worse trouble.

 

left ous some... everything has its dangers. driving to work, shooting an aerosol can (that one really!!!!) the point is... everything you do is dangerous, some more than others. if you ride safe and dont ride like a maniac (me... j/k) then you should be relativly safe on either one!!

 

I have ridden atv's all my life, and have only been on dirtbikes a few times. I have ridden a street bike a lot, and it is nothing like a dirt bike. I would say that if you are going to be doing a lot of jumping and track type riding, get the bike and learn how to ride it, because you are going to have some wrecks no matter what. (These wrecks will probably hurt a lot less on a bike) If you are going to wanna do long trail rides and don't want to put in a lot of time learning how to ride, get the atv. You will be able to begin riding immediately and enjoy it. The bike is gonna take you some time to get used to, and a long time to become a really good rider. Unless you are an idiot, you probably aren't gonna get on either one and take off straight up some huge, obviously dangerous hill, so I wouldn't worry too much about those scenarios. There are probably a lot more wrecks per rider on dirt bikes, but the atv wrecks are probably more serious. I will say, however, that most of these wrecks occur because: the machine is too big or too fast for the rider to handle, the rider was inexperienced and tried to do something that was beyond his/her skill level, or they were just a flat out crazy rider and they were bound to get hurt sooner or later.

Either way, I would choose a beginner bike. Don't get a 250 2 stroke bike, or a banshee, for example. I had quite a bit of experience riding the first time I got on a banshee(my experience was on a small 2wd utility quad) and I almost killed myself just putting around the pasture in second gear!

Hope this helps

 

I prefer riding an atv over a dirt bike but i think that starting out on a dirtbike will be somewhat safer[crashes on dirtbikes usually dont hurt as much and dont cost as much by personal experiance] also if you start off riding a dirt bike and then decide to ride atvs the experience of the dirtbike will help you out a great deal on the 4wheeler,it did for me atleast.


P.S. If you do make the switch to quads after dirtbikes it would be wise to get some nerf bars, because at first dirtbike habbit of putting your feet down while going arond corners can be pretty painful[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]