Every other Friday I work at home and take my wife out for lunch. Some good quality time without our 3 kids. During lunch today, my wife told me that a 11 year old girl in our area was killed with an ATV earlier this week. The little girl was upgraded from an 80cc Raptor directly onto a 250 2 stroke Polaris unit. As her parents watch, she usually drives her quads "around and around" the race track in their back yard. On her last day, which was the 2nd session she drove their 250, she was driving with an open face helmet, no chest protector and with running shoes. The father ran into their garage to answer a phone call - which happended to be a saleman / telemarketing call. When he came out of their garage, his 11 year old girl and the 250 quad were laying in pieces & 1/2 wrapped around a big maple tree. By the tracks made in the dirt, it appears she lost it around a corner and drove "head on" into the tree. This is the first child death accident I've heard about in my region. What will make this so memorable to me is, this little girl (who is the same physical size of my 9 year old son) is the older sister of the kids on my baseball team. I've said hi to her many times. I wondered why their son and the other family members didn't attend my last baseball practice.

So many unanswered questions. Stuff like:
- Why was she allowed to drive a 250 two stroke?
- Why wasn't a throttle stop installed on this unit? (even restricting it down to 15 mph could have helped).
- Why didn't she have a chest protector on?
- Why was she only wearing an open face helent? (my son always wears a full face helmet)
- Why would the father run in their garage to answer their phone? (what happened to 100% supervision!)
- If the father did yell at her to slow down, would she have enough time to stop sliding BEFORE she lost control?

So many unanswered questions that "this family" must endure the rest of their lives.

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Lecturing about laws isn't my style. Lecturing about mandatory safety gear isn't my style. Lecturing about "being a an over protective parent" isn'u my style. Lecturing about "kid age to engine CC" isn't my style either. Just wanted to post this one to emphasis that each of us (and our young riders) need to use "common sence" when upgrading quads and supervising each of our kids.


Note: If they did everything correctly (re: body fit quad, safety equipment, wireless communications, 100% supervision, etc.) and she still got killed, it would have been "an accident". As a person, accidents are much easier to swallow then "neglect and stupidity". If you see a kid driving on an over sized quad, and start lecturing his/her parent about "stupidity & risk", use this "real life" post as part of your ammunition. It may help or it may NOT. But at least you have more then laws and "death kill" ratios to provide the parent...

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some people have NO common sense. It was probably too early to put that child on a bike like that. It all depends on the history though. How long was she on the smaller bike? was she riding for many years before or just a short time before the upgrade? Accidents can happen to anyone. At least she was wearing a helmet, maybe they couldnt afford closed face, but should of probably splurged. Who really knows what happened. But knowing more of a history could connect some of the dots. No matter what though, a sad price was paid for negligance. A throttle stop should of def been installed, as it is very ease. ( i had one when I first started driving my bigger quad as a child, until the screw came loose and held it wide open [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] ) Chest protector? I dont think that would of done much againsta tree. As far as what would of happened if the father was there, who knows. Maybe she noticed he was gone and got cocky w/ it ?!?! NO MATTER WHAT. You will always have younger people getting hurt on these things as long as they are allowed to get onto them. There is no amount of supervision or protective gear that can 100% assure safety.

 

Common sence? Might have helped, but blaming the parent is not always the answer. I am a firm believer in "things happen for a reason." And passing blame never really solves anything. Be it the quads fault, the dads, the girls or whatever. I am not saying that it is not the dads fault or the girls, accidents happen. When I was looking into getting my sons into riding my wife was totally against it. After doing some research, I found that more kids were seriously hurt falling out of bunk beds than on quads. So do we ban all bunk beds? Should kids and parents HAVE to go to a training coarse for proper bunk bed training? Accidents happen, its what happens after that that makes a difference. I do feel very bad for the family. I have known more than 5 kids that have either been killed or seriously hurt riding atv's. Some have even been totlally legit age wise and had all the protective gear on and was not even ridding fast.

Common sence? Might be, I don't know, probably never will. What I do know is the good Lord promised us that our days are numbered. And not to pass judgement.

 

I feel for these parents. I know I would take that really hard.

Playing "what if" can drive a person insane.



I know a guy with kids ranging from around10-13 that ride a trail boss and warrior. They handle them surprisingly well.

BUT, you know I think kids should be 100% surpervised. ALWAYS. To me, it's not enough to watch from a distance either. You need to be involved.

 

One of the other sad parts is, this father (and mother) will probably surf every mini Quad forum on the internet and start publishing posts about "how bad minis are!", "how age to cc laws are correct!" and even play golf with lawyers and politicians to try to soften their emotional pain. Like all parents who loose a child in any sport (or an illness to cancer), they have to go through their various grieving phases. Phases like disbeliefe, anger, pointing blame at others, lobby to force new laws on others, etc. etc. In the end, they will emotionally feel better (even justified in their passion) but they will cause mass destruction in their path. Yet, in their hearts they feel justified in their actions by "pushing" laws, "dead kill ratios" and worst case exceptions on others. Yes, another family against our sport. Media and politicians love talking to family's like this. Too bad the family will NEVER get charged with "child neglect - due to lack of 100% supervision & lack of full safety equipment". Our Quading Sport will immediately get blamed for this kid's death too.

Was it the kids fault? Was it the the parents fault? Was it the over sized quad's fault? Or, was it an act of God? One of those "it have happened to the kid on her previous Raptor 980 anyway" excuses. Certain percentage of blame or reason lies in each of these questions. The main fact is, our mini-quad sport is 100% fault in the media, lawyers, doctors and politicians eyes. For proof, surf - Press Here - (* Select Normal View to read its text)

If this suggested law is passed, there will be many ATV Instructors out of a job too.

Pretty sad in many ways for sure...

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key word here is TRAGEDY . Anytime a parent outlives a child is tragic. SOmething like this would be horrific for any of us. I ride with my kids all the time and TRY to supervise, but who hasn't been distracted, or momentarily turned away? I have, and I feel as responsible as anyone. Isn't there something in the bible about,... "let he who has never sinned cast the first stone...." ? (And I'm not religious, just remember some of the quotes). I think it's got something to do with none of us are perfect, but I haven't actually had a preacher give me a technical translation.

We go to a large outdoor venue with 80 family members every year. The kids ride all day long, longer than anyone, and they usually end up grouping based on age and ability. Riders are aged from 7-20 +adults.They have earned some trust from their parents, and if they prove wrong, privileges are suspended. Every year someone gets hurt, so far it's always been pretty minor. None of the really young ones, usually a teenager or adult trying a big hill climb, or jump. Almost always they're on dirtbike. The quad accidents (on the rare occasions they occur) are generally from stupidity (drinking/riding), or trying something too steep.The drinking is frowned upon, but teenagers and young adults don't always listen and never think it will happen to them.

All of these families are hard working, responsible, sensible people that allow their kids to ride based on their abilities. The riders aren't always supervised, but guess what? Accidents can happen during supervised riding just as easily, and certainly happen during competitive riding. How may of you here have your kids in a race circuit doing competition riding?Sure are tons of posts about racing, race results, performance mods, etc.. During a race all you can do is sit and watch. You guys must see tons of accidents there. I know i see them at the motocross track all the time.

riding motorized machinery has inherent risks. BTW, all our riding is done with full protective gear. unfortunately, sometimes your number is just up.

 

There are 275 million people in this country. Common sense tells us that statistically some percentage will have accidents and die. It also tells us that people will reach out to blame something or someone. Inevitably. some fool will pass a law. Maybe they could sue the tree?

 

The tragedy is that despite the recommendations, instructions, and warnings - these parents chose to gamble their childs life (a 11 year old without the common sense to decide these things).

They lost.

And yes - additional laws designed to prevent these tragedys are coming. So many parents have gambled and lost that laws are being passed to prohibit riding a ATV by anyone under 16 who does not have the safety training certificate and the penalty for providing over sized quads to children under 16 is substancial.

Fortunetly I don't have to say much more as the posts in this thread speak volumes.

disclaimer for those who dont get it: Youth ATV rules and regulations vary from state to state and country to country. Be aware of the rules and regulations where you ride.

 

At a legal seminar I went to once (for new laws passed here to deal with an epidemic of leaky condos) the law professor said when we can't fix our own problems, some laws become a form of social engineering, forcing things on people that shouldn't necessarily need to be a law. The more kids that become statistics, the closer we get to that social engineering thing........ telling people what they can or can't do. It's a shame because you'd think this is something we can all control without laws being passed, but as usual, a relative handful of idiots destroy it for the vast majority of responsible people.

 

Its unfortunet, but it actually isnt that rare. I go to google news, and type in 'atv' and every time i look. there are about 3 or 4 deaths, per day.
google news search for "atv"