Mrs Rabe IS an idiot for making the comment about there not being a law. HOWEVER, My condolences to her.

 

1. If I didnt have ATV'ing I would be a fat pot head with no life.
2. If they made the rules that 350 and over was free for any atv it would just be dumb beacuase this should be at least 400cc for the kid my size should be minumum. Plus by the time we get older there not gunna be 400's there gunna be 1000's the atv world is stepping up and there is nothing that these News or anyone else is going to do about it.
3.The average atv cost for one over 300cc's is more then 4 grand more like 45 hundred or 5 grand.
4. This family is a disgrace. How can they put it on anything and anyone but themself. Its the parents fualt that they gave the keys to the machine to the son and he flipped it. It was the kids and the parents fualt.
5. Utility machines are not meant for steep hills especially with kids on them that cant flip it back over if it lands on them

 

There is more to this whole thing then children being killed on any ATV. Like with many things in this country, once an event happens (The Ozzy crash.), it gives all of the groups that oppose an event or activity the opportunity to rally up the powers that be to help them rid the world of what they perceive to be a Great Evil. In this instance, it happens to be ATV's.

The statistics for children killed on Bicycles is 100 times that of ATV's, but you don't see any of these "Gotta save you from yourself" News agencies or do good'er groups rallying behind outlawing Bicycles.

The trouble with this issue is the same problem that our society has as a whole. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!!!! It's the "It is not my fault" attitude when anything goes wrong, that has taken over every aspect of our lives and our judicial system.

Any child (Or adult for that matter), loosing their life is a sad and tragic event, especially for their loved ones left behind. A lot of people in this thread are being pretty hard on the parents of this child. I don't personally agree with their actions leading up to and now after the death of their child, but to have your child die in your arms, has to be a life changing even. I can't imagine the pain that the family of any child that is killed on an ATV, a Bike, a Skateboard, or in a Car, must go through. The ones that anger me the most in this whole story is the groups that try to take advantage of the terrible events to push forward their personal and selfish agendas at the price of a child's death.

 

RPM,

I've corrected 2 other members on this comment........

"The statistics for children killed on Bicycles is 100 times that of ATV's"

Not true.............That should read "injuries" and not "killed".

More kids ARE killed on ATVs than bicycles.

 

This is a very sad story. I know that none of us want any more restrictions on our personal choices. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that do make poor choices. The parents of the 10 year old boy probably felt the same way as most of you do. They werent breaking any laws by letting him ride it. Sounds like he was a pretty good rider and they felt comfortable with what he was doing. True, they were not supervising him at the time and I believe all kids should be supervised while riding. The same thing could have happened right before there eyes with the same horrible outcome.

Physical size and mental capacity are the two most important factors in deciding what a kid should ride regardless of skill.

My kids 70 and 90 pulls my 185 lbs. around pretty good, I think a larger frame with smaller motor is a good idea for the husky young kids. Lots of people already do it with blaster frames in races.

 

In the county I live in, since the first of the year, 2 children have been hit by cars while riding Bicycles and died as a result of their injuries. There have been ZERO deaths of children as a result of ATV accidents. Granted, I don't know the Exact numbers involved in the Bicycle vs ATV, or the numbers of bike riders vs ATV riders, but the number of deaths, at least where I live is Bicycles 2, ATV's 0.

Either way, my point is that the ATV safety issue is just an argument, waged by those who don't like ATV's in general. They are using a tragedy like this to advance their agenda. If their true purpose was to make ATV's safer for everyone including children, then they would be best served by sitting down with people in the industry and trying to come up with reasonable ideas that will actually help prevent such accidents from happening, instead of the "Ban or limit" by children approach. They could start by changing the laws that put larger children on quads that are dangerously small for them.