By Rick Methot
Lebanon Daily News (Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2007 Lebanon Daily News
All Rights Reserved
Last week in semi-rural Hunterdon County, N.J., 12-year-old Emily Marshall was riding an all-terrain vehicle on the family property. Her dad was inside the house, on the phone.
A neighbor appeared at the door to report something was wrong. They ran to find Emily pinned under the 700-pound machine. They struggled to shove the ATV off Emily and tried CPR on the youngster, to no avail.
She was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at a local hospital.
Six years ago Emily’s mother died in a freak accident, crushed between two trucks. Emily saw it happen.
The father is naturally devastated by this second tragedy in his life. A 31-year-old wife and 12-year-old daughter, gone.
Anyone reading that story not feeling at least some pang of sorrow and sympathy probably should be working for al-Qaida.
Unfortunately, ATV accidents and fatalities are on the rise, as nationwide sales hit $3 billion last year, according to published reports.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 460 people were killed driving or riding on ATVs, and more than 120 were under age 16. The CPSC stats show more than 2,710 children have died on ATVs since 1982, an average of more than 90 a year. The grim numbers are actually worse, according to the West Virginia University Injury Research Center. The organization’s Web site shows several current projects involving ATV accidents. A published report says from 2000-04 the number of young people under 16 killed on ATVs is up 25 percent from the previous five-year study.
For those not familiar with ATVs, there are all shapes and sizes of the machines available in a wide range of prices. The models I see at my hunting club cost more than my first new car.
I should say up front that I have nothing against these machines. I haven’t dragged a deer out of the woods in recent years thanks to the young men on the farm I hunt using their ATVs for the chore. My aging body and heart are most appreciative. These “kids” are in their late teens and early 20s but have been operating farm machinery since they were a lot younger. Not the safest thing in a dangerous-enough occupation, but it’s pretty much the norm in rural Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Most ATVs are purchased for recreational purposes, off-road jaunts, poker runs or just simply getting from one place to another over hill and dale quickly and cheaply in a cool-looking ride.
One of the problems is kids being kids but also young bodies driving or riding on machines made for adult frames and weights.
Dealers are supposedly not allowed to sell an adult machine that some doting parent admits is for his 12-year-old. But according to a CBS News report, the ATV industry polices itself, wink wink, and it happens.
Pennsylvania state law says no one under 10 shall operate an ATV on state-owned land.
From 1982 to 2005, 394 ATV deaths were reported in the Keystone State, 73 of them kids under 16.
ATVs must be registered, titled and covered by liability insurance, with few exceptions, and can’t legally be driven on streets and highways, except for short distances such as crossing the road. There are designated ATV trails and roads, but riders have to be at least 16.
From 10 to 16, kids are only supposed to operate an ATV on land of a parent or guardian, unless he or she has completed a prescribed safety-training course and received an ATV-training certificate.
One key element of Pennsylvania ATV law that is missing in many other states is that a helmet is required -- and that means securely fastened to the driver’s head. This is unlike the state’s motorcycle-helmet law, which basically says if you’re over 21 and have two years riding under your belt you can wear one if you feel like it.
I see motorcycle riders zooming down the road without helmets and I think one thing: They’re nuts. But hey, it’s your “constitutional” right to crash your cranium into concrete.
Picture a baseball bat slamming a cantaloupe. Messy.
Fortunately most ATV drivers are negotiating dirt rather than the hard, hard highway, though hills and dirt curves can be trickier. But helmets are the rule, and it’s a proven good one.
ATVs can be useful and fun machines, especially up on the farm or in the woods and trails, but driven recklessly by youngsters with little experience handling machines that are in many cases too large for them is potential death on wheels.
And parents who turn their kids loose on improper machines or without training or little supervision will, or should, take some responsibility for what may occur.
Accidents, and deaths, are on the rise.
A fact well known to first responders and emergency-room personnel.
And why so many ATV-accident-related Web sites are run by lawyers.