In my internet travels I came across this.... I think its a pretty interesting read.


The story of our Meerkat50 with CPSC announcement. (Jason Tsai, the owner of KP)

CPSC sent a letter to Kazuma Pacific Inc. (KP) on DEC 12, 2006, said that our Meerkat50 is evaluated as a hazardous product by CPSC according to the industry standard ANSI-SVIA 2001: (1) no front brake (2) no park brake (3) no gear indicator (4) no owner's manual storage (5) pole support hole diameter is less than 1/2"......., CPSC demanded KP to agree with a volunteer recall.
When I received the letter; I called the factory immediately to stop all the shipment of Meerkat50 to KP, and I asked factory to make a new generation of Meerkat50 asap which must be complied with CPSC demand, but factory said it will take 3 months to make the new tooling, so I reply to CPSC with this information, but I did not reply CPSC for the recall.

On March 7, 2007; an auditor from CPSC; Miss Barbara Wilson; came to my office; she asked me why I did not reply them for the recall of Meerkat50, I told her the new type Meerkat50 is ready for shipping now, but I am an importer and distributor, I am unable to modify the ATV with front brake, park brake .....without factory help. I also told her that we have no accident report on the Meerkat50 in the past 7 years except one law-suit but that is user's neglect to fit the chair improperly, so the chair fell off when driver stand up on his foot, and accident happen when the driver sit down without a chair there. I asked Miss B. Wilson that do you really think we have to recall a non-accident ATV in the pass 7 years?

Miss B. Wilson gave me two books to show me the recall procedure and the penalty if I ignore CPSC's request. She suggested me better to find a lawyer to handle this case. So I contacted the Lawyer Hsyung to handle this recall thing for me, and I contacted factory to ask them what they can help me for the recall.

Mr. Hsyung asked me to get the ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD before he can do the reply to CPSC. I tried many bookstores, but nobody keep ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD in stock, we have to do a special order with 14 days delivery. I sent a e-mail to CPSC to explain to them the situation, I also asked CPSC where I can buy the standard for quick delivery, but they said no ideal.

Before I can get the ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD; CPSC sent KP another letter and give KP two choices:
(1) Either KP agrees to make a volunteer recall (CPSC gave me a sample letter which KP should announce in newspaper or TV)
(2) Or CPSC will make an announce to the public.(CPSC also gave me the sample letter which they want to announce, and it is about the same you already seen).
And we must reply within 20 days.

Mr. Hsyung replied to CPSC on the last due days after we received the ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD.
We replied to CPSC as below:
(1) ANSI defines the ATV as: "A vehicle designed to travel on four low pressure tires......ANSI-SVIA 2001 is the standard for ATV which carry an engine of 70cc and bigger", but our Meerkat50 is fitted with a 48cc engine, it should be classified as Moped not vehicle, it is a toy for kids to play, not to travel.

(2) The factory said that to build a new Meerkat50 with front brake, park brake, gear indicator is possible and safer, however to modify an existing Meerkat50 with front brake, park brake, gear indicator which will damage the frame safety structure, will move away the safety gravity central point, will make the ATV even un-safer., any unexpected accident could happen. Beside; the welding will damage the tension of the material, weaken the strength of chassis, suspension and stab axle, the chassis could split into two pieces while bumping, wheels could fall off while riding, the ATV could tumble while turning.

(3) KP does not have enough capital to support the recall and refund.

(4) The CPSC's saying for "The firm does not maintain incident or injury information for any of the products it sells". This saying is not true. KP do keep all the accident record, and there is no accident claim for Meerkat50 in the past 7 years due to Front Brake, Park Brake, Gear Indicator

(5) The CPSC's saying for "Between December 2006 and April 2007, Kazuma Pacific has impeded CPSC's efforts to protect the safety of children, by refusing to implement a corrective action plan". This saying is not true. As soon as we received CPSC letter on DEC 12, 2006, we informed the factory immediately to stop shipping any Meerkat50 to KP and modify the Meerkat50 quickly to comply with CPSC demand.

(6) The CPSC's saying for "KP has stated that they are continuing to sell the units that CPSC staff found to be defective", This saying is not true. KP had stop selling Meerkat50 since MAR 7, 2007 after Miss Barbara Wilson visiting us.

(7) We request CPSC do not do the announcement.



However Mr. Hsyung received a CPSC letter on May 21, similar to the letter before, CPSC giving us 5 days to reply, either to agree with a volunteer recall or they will do the announcement.

CPSC did the announcement on June 4 as you know.


Below is my comment.
I know hundreds of American died by riding ATV every year, thousands got injured, most of them are teenage, and the accident number is increasing every year. CPSC is doing the right thing to reduce the death or injury by riding ATV, but I think CPSC dose not catch the point.

We ever asked CPSC that who are the makers of these killer machines? Has Kazuma been listed one of them? Any recall for these killer machines? CPSC did not give us the answer; but I do believe CPSC must have the record of killer machine makers.

The ATV safety problem should not be focus only at ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD . Those killer machines all got front brake, park brake, gear indicator, but people still get killed or injured.

The ATV safety problem today in USA is over-powering.
When a teenage jump on a 200cc or 300cc high performance ATV, the power of the machine make them feel like a superman, the speed, it fly, and it kill.
Furthermore; for an adult to ride a 400cc or 500cc ATV with high performance engine, accident will happen very easily, if he never be trained to control this monster of a high performance engine.

CPSC should set up a rule for ATV driver license, any adult want to drive a 200cc (and bigger) ATV with high performance engine, he (she) must be trained first.
And those who want to sell the killer machines should offer the training course for the buyers. CPSC should make a big big big announcement with short movie to let all the American parents understand how dangerous it is for a teenage to ride a high performance ATV.

Nobody in China today, can make high performance engine, China can only produce low performance engine this moment, and low performance engine is much safer than high performance engine, no speed, no kill. However most of Chinese ATVs made in poor quality due to the pricing competition. As I know, there are over 500,000 units of Chinese kids ATV imported into USA in 2005 and 2006, and most of them are 110cc, 100cc, 90cc, 80cc, 70cc without front brake (see attached picture), and even worse, most of them are KAZUMA copycat. Every ten KAZUMA ATVs you can see on the market, nine of them are copycat. If you go to Google and enter kazuma atv, you will see, hundreds of copycat there. We did send the information to CPSC, but CPSC seems have no interests to recall these copycat ATVs, I still don't understand what is CPSC's concerning? A 110cc ATV without front brake should be much more hazardous than a 48cc ATV, isn't it? Why CPSC dose not want to make the announcement to warn the public for these copycat which had been mass imported into USA.
When I told CPSC that we don't have accident report for our Meerkat50, they don't believe me, that is why they written in their announcement that "Kazuma Pacific has refused to provide complete indident or injury information for any of their products, therefore CPSC has been unable to determine how man children have been injured."
They don't believe me, that is fine, I can understand, I am a Chinese.
But CPSC took from me all my dealers information and visited most of my dealers in the past few weeks, and get all the end users contact details from my dealers.
Do they pick up any accident report?
Why they still want to put the lie on their the announcement?
Why they don't believe themselves either?
That is truly I don't understand, and this is why I said, it seems to me that CPSC is more interests to destroy Kazuma name rather than just warning the public.


Our Meerkat50 have been selling in USA since 2000, but why CPSC has to take 7 years to find out the Meerkat50 is a severe hazardous product? Why this happened right at the timing that American are going to accept Kazuma?
I worry someone are giving untruth complains to CPSC about Kazuma.
I don't know who, but I should know why.

There are hundreds of ATV factories in China, but Kazuma is the only one brand can stand up in USA market. We are the first person to bring in low price ATV into USA in 2000, our Meerkat50 retail price today is only $499, before our came in, the price for a 50cc ATV in USA is $1700, Kazuma 500cc 4x4 ATV, 800cc 4x4 UTV are also available from this year, and the prices are less than half of the current market price. We do very hard to service our customers, we are the only one (I mean Chinese low price ATVs) to keep full range of parts with prompt technical support locally here. We build up KAZUMA name slowly but surely in the past 7 years, it is not easy you know, but it had been destroyed so easily today.

I have proof to support my worry as below.
On Mar-20 2007 we received the first accident claim that our 90cc ATV, the carburetor cap fell off, speed out of control, ATV crashed, kid get hurt, which never happen is the past 7 years. And in the same week, we receive another three same complains from different people, and in the same week, we received the investigation letter from CPSC for this issue. We asked the people to give us the VIN and engine no. and send back the ATV to us to inspect, but no reply since that. This is just one of the cases can prove my worry that someone are giving wrong information to CPSC about KAZUMA, they did it on our 50cc , and they turn to our 90cc now..

Actually there is only one argue between CPSC and KP for the Meerkat50 story: CPSC want us to RECALL all the Meerkat50 which we had sold in USA market, but we don't want to. Because ANSI-SVIA 2001 STANDARD is a volunteer standard written by Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Polaris for high performance ATV (they don't make any low performance ATV). I do believe recall or not should be judged by the court. CPSC got the right to warn the public, but from CPSC, the words they putting, it seems to me that CPSC wants to destroy KAZUMA name more than give warning to the public.
"
Finally; I would like to ask you a question;
When the killer ATVs are still in the market by taking hundreds of life away every year, why a non-accident toy ATV must recall due to safety concern?
Do you think it makes sense?

 

I would make two recommendations for Mr Tsai:

#1 - If it is true that the CPSC has taken this action citing an ANSI standard that does not apply to their product and that CPSC action has impacted the sales of that product, then I'd be filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the CPSC. While it would take years to settle, if the above statements are true then it would be a legal slam-dunk. At the same time it would generate some positive publicity for Kazuma by highlighting the lack of credibility of the CPSC.

#2 - With all due respect to Mr. Tsai's heritage - He could help the credibility of his response if his words could be proofread by someone with better English speaking skills. However you want to spin it the diction of Mr. Tsai's letter makes him sound less knowledgable than he probably is.

Jaybee

 

Let's remember that the Big Four voluntarily signed the CPSC ruling regarding ATV Safety. NO ONE ELSE DID, TMK.
On the positive side, perhaps this is the beginning of forced quality control on the Chinese quad distributors.
The distributors that are voluntarily 'designing' Chinese quads with safety and quality more in the forefront will likely survive the onslaught from Big Bro, the rest will fade over time.
I believe it will take a long time though, isn't the CPSC required to file lawsuits to enforce its wishes?
If KP's position is legally sound, they might have a chance. I say might, because moral and legal superiority don't always win in our legal system.
What was it that Shakespeare said about lawyers...

 

I found this after reading the original post: http://www.parentdish.com/2007...ective-and-dangerous/. If you'll notice the comments section at the bottom of the page, you'll see alot of people giving opinion on skewed/inaccurate or zero personal experience. These are the people that will be asked to offer their services as jurors in such cases.

Total BS.

The real problem is parents that buy these as absentee "babysitters" for their children. As was stated by Commentator #2 in the above link, are there any ATVs that ARE NOT dangerous??

 

I don't know if the CPSC has to file a lawsuit to enforce it wishes, I think it's more of a tool they use.

Much cheaper for a company to sign a piece of paper than to pay a group of lawyers to drag out a case in court.

It does sound as though they do have a legal recourse against the CPSC. Besides Kazuma, what about the companies that had frame issues a while back? Can't remember if it was SunL or whoever, but it seemed liked you heard horror stories from every other one they sold. Some breaking as the were be taken out of the store. That seems like a pretty severe defect to me as well.

Don't know who is right with the Meerkat case, but it has given me just a little more info of what to look for when I buy a mini atv in the future.

 

this crap really pisses me off, instead of the cpsc going after the kazuma meerkat,which i belive to be a great beginner atv for the 4-6 year olds, they should be after the sunl group, more broken frames than i could possibly could count

 

The big problem we had with the Meerkat (in addition to the fact that it never did start well) was that it was too small and too narrow, so it was way too tippy. Compare that to the '06 Arctic Cat DVX 50, which ios a much more stable machine, but which only goes 9 mph stock. So, with the four gears and all, the Meerkat was way too fast and way too likely to tip over. Plus, the footwells were already too small when my (normal sized) 7 year-old got it. (See my pictures.)

 

thats correct the meerkat to small for a 7 year old but it's a perfit fit for the 4-6 year olds, our grandkids outgrew the meerkat at ages 6-7.

 

The chinese quads do serve a purpose and for their price it is hard to no take a second look, but the reality is that it is a volume business..

Volume and qty are "usually" not 2 words that end up in the same sentence with good results

I have to say it lands on the parents shoulders for buying "the economical" choice for something that can result in serious injury.


Most of the Chinese quads have more power than their suspension could ever handle......But parents want to save money and but these substandard quads....Saving money when it comes to safety would make it had for me to sleep at night.....but I guess budgets are budgets??

It would be nice if the performance of the suspension had to meet certain criteria based on engine performance....This would force the market to increase the level of quality and let the consumer know that the manufacturer has a safe product.

There are companies like DRR that make quads with more suspension and safety features than their motor can produce...41" to 44" wide with real shocks, 4 whl disc brakes, dual a arms, speed limited, tethered kil, etc..... www.drrinc.com They are about $2,000, but what is your child's safety worth? or how much is that first injury going to cost you? financially and emotionally?

 

if you worry about your kids getting hurt then you're better off locking them up in the bedroom