I'm all for safety but this is utterly ridiculous and complete folly! Mr. Ross points out the problem to a tee but fails to see the appropriate solution....helmets not roll bars!! This is most certainly deserving of a letter to the editor and a letter to the WV Senate!! Everyone is encouraged to do the same.

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CHARLESTON - Check out the latest model in a long row of all-terrain vehicle safety bills rolling out of the Legislature's assembly line.

This one definitely adds a new dimension - roll bars.

Basically, it's the same measure a team of conferees had agreed on last winter until a floor fight in the Senate detoured it into a pit stop. It never got back on track.

Senate Transportation Chairman Mike Ross, D-Randolph, already is getting it refinished, hopefully to add a requirement that manufacturers produce ATVs with a rollover protection system.

"It would be something on the order of a roll bar on a farm tractor, or something on the order of a protection system you get on a bulldozer, or other heavy equipment, so the rider will be protected," Ross explained.

"You could do this with lightweight, aluminum tubing, because the vehicles aren't that heavy."

In many instances where serious injury, even death occurs, the rider is tossed off the vehicle, and strikes his head on a rock or tree, Ross pointed out.

"I think this could be done very inexpensively," the transportation chairman said. "You ought to be able to build it real safe."

For seven years, lawmakers have struggled with various bills all designed to do one thing - impose safety standards on the operation of four-wheelers in the face of a nation-high death rate.

West Virginia is among half a dozen states without such a law, leaving ATV owners to ride carte blanche over any road they choose.

There have been 24 deaths in ATV accidents this year in the state, according to the Center for Rural Emergency Medicine. No figures are available for non-fatal injuries - an element that has brought the West Virginia State Medical Association into the formula as a strong proponent of safety regulation in the 2004 session.

A year ago, ATV accidents claimed 27 lives in West Virginia.

"If you look at some of the carnival rides that we see go 'round, and 'round, and 'round, they always sort of put a little cage around you and put a seatbelt on you," Ross said.

"Very few people fall out of a carnival ride."

Some ATVs feature small canopies designed to shield riders against inclement weather.

"If you had this frame work of square tubing or aluminum tubing, which is lightweight but strong, if you had that framework over top of you, it'd be easy to put a canopy over there to protect you from the weather," he said.

Ross says he intends to ask manufacturers to design a safety system, allowing them three years to produce one.

"In the meantime, we grandfather all the others in, but as people come on with new ones, they would buy the new ones," he said.

Ross pointed to the advent of the airbag, now almost standard equipment on cars, and the production of stronger doors that almost render them crash-proof.

"We can't let the ATV manufacturers just sit there and keep cranking out the same machine - bigger horsepower, four wheels and a set of handlebars and seat," he said.

- E-mail: mporterfield@register-herald.com

 

Roll Bars?

You got to be kidding me?I'll bet this jerk has never even rode an ATV in his life.

Bill

 

Mike Ross: cglagola@mail.wvnet.edu

Billy Wayne Bailey/Wyoming County bwbailey@mail.wvnet.edu

H. Truman Chafin/Mingo County cglagola@mail.wvnet.edu

John Pat Fanning/McDowell County cglagola@mail.wvnet.edu

Russ Weeks/Raleigh County rweeks@mail.wvnet.edu

Earl Ray Tomblin/Logan County/Senate President spres@mail.wvnet.edu

Robert S. Kiss/Raleigh/House President castor@mail.wvnet.edu

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/ADA_legishp1b.html

 

A roll bar would only work if you were actually inside them during a rollover. So then a seat belt system would also be mandatory or you would fall out and get crushed by the rollbar during a accident. A pilot or oddesy has this but they are not really the same type of vehicle now are they?

 

A seat belt....so we can be strapped to a 400+lbs hunk of hot metal and plastic....so when a simple lay-over happens it can go from a push back over to a possible broken leg...I'd really rather be able to try getting away from a quad than to be strapped to it while tumbling down the hillside.

 

A roll bar on a quad would only make a rollover situation worse! It'll never happen anyway.

 

How many people are injured by rollovers anyway. Most of the crashes Ive heard about were from cars hitting quads ,running off the trails into solid objects or breaking through thin ice . I would like to see a mx quad with a roll bar ,now that would be funny...lol

 

Every quad in Israel has to have a roll bar, maybe this is where he got that crazy idea.

 

Well it make perfectly good sense if you are riding an oddesy, pilot or some kind of sand rail etc but this is one of the areas that a quad is more like a motorcycle and this will actually add to the injuries.

I know most ATV enthusiasts are extremely safety sensitive since its their body that is involved etc and think this is a bad idea. Believe me I would be the first one to jump on an idea that increased safety and reduced the risk of injury but I also have to be inline to advise on the ones that would do just the opposite and cause buyers or consumers to be forced to pay more for a greater risk of being injured.

Things like mandatory safety equipment though contrary to our constitutional rights would actually increase safety and reduce injury and death.

Just look at the amount of serious injuries and deaths that occur with riders that are not properly protected or were engaged in either illegal or unsafe riding like riding on the hiway, without a helmut or with a passenger(s) etc and you can see where these efforts need to be apllied.

So please put this effort into an area that would actually increase or promote a safer atv experience and not continue on this path that would be detrimental to the safety of our ever increasing popular sport.


I wrote that as much due to it being my honest opinion as for anyone wanting to write to the officials listed but not sure on what to say. Please dont everyone just copy and paste but mix it up with some of your own etc.

Hopefully if enough of us reply to these things the regulators will at some point be able to help us instead of make us nuts.

 

Mike Ross is an idiot and always has been. If you think this is bad, the Center for Public Integrity web site lableded him as one of the worst state elected officials having special interests in his chairmanship. What I mean is, he owns oil, gas, and timber resources, and is or was for many years if he isn't now the Chairman of Natural Resources in the Senate. Mike Ross is a loser and he is why our state government has the reputation it has. Let's not just oppose this idea, let's ge to the people in his district to oust him. While we're at it, ask him to change his name back to what it really is, Rossi, he's so determined to keep his power for his own interest, he changed his name because of fear of not getting votes because of his Italian heritage. He ought to be proud his parents were immigrants just like about everyone else in this country. Mike Ross, "keeping West Virginia down."