Not Safe
If I suggested to someone that they should let their six-year-old drive their Kawasaki motorbike down the freeway, you would rightly be suggesting that they lock me up somewhere nice and quiet. Yet that is more or less how risky it is to allow a child to ride an ATV (All-Terrain vehicle alias a Quad-bike) across uneven farmland. The paper today carries another tragedy involving an ATV – a six-year-old crushed to death underneath one. This is not an uncommon occurrence.
If you look through the list of children killed in ATV accidents between 2000 and 2006 (16 of them) as reported in the New Zealand Journal of Medicine in September, you will see that almost all who were driving at the time, were killed when the vehicle flipped. Parent get fooled into thinking these vehicles are safe, because they are so stable. They forget that even the child models are heavy and powerful vehicles. It is their weight that makes them so stable. Unfortunately, children lack the strength needed to keep the vehicle straight, on a particularly bumpy or sloping section, and lose control easily. Ninety nine times out of a hundred the vehicle will correct itself or roll gently to a halt. Every now and then, it won’t – and a child is injured or killed.
Mind you, around 10 adults a year are also killed by quad bikes, mostly by attempting to drive on too steep a slope and, as with children, flipping the vehicle. Many of the fatalities are passengers, something that the manufacturers specifically warn against. They are designed solely for a single occupant. The centre of gravity is under the seat, meaning that the sides flip up and down with the bumpy terrain – easily throwing passengers off.
Legislation will be a complete waste of time. Firstly, it will be almost impossible to police. There are over 10,000 ATVs in New Zealand and few of them go anywhere near a decent road. Police would have to be issued with farm bikes themselves, just to get around. Secondly, no amount of legislation will make the ATV safe. By definition, the ATV is designed to drive over rough terrain and that will always be inherently unsafe. Helmets, seat belts and roll-bars will not make this a safe activity and none of these have been effectively demonstrated to reduce injuries in ATV accidents. Indeed the little girl in yesterday’s tragedy was wearing her helmet, but it did not save her.
ATVs are not toys. They are not safe. They are just as risky as that motorbike on the freeway. Children have no business being on one.
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Dec 14 09 6:33 am
Watcha gonna do? Wrap everyone in cotton wool – at least you perceive legislation is not the answer.
It is a tragedy that this little girl has been killed, as it is when any child dies but we cannot make life risk free no matter how much we would like to. We can mitigate some risk but at some point we have to accept that we cannot eliminate it and the cost of trying outweighs the benefits of accepting it and getting on with enjoying life.
Providing kids with opportunities such as riding an ATV or a horse (also potentially dangerous) for that matter enriches their childhood experience and helps develop co-ordination and confidence.
And when it comes down to it a lot more kids are killed in dysfunctional homes than on ATVs
Dec 14 09 7:12 am
I understand that one of the issues with ATVs is that the weight of the driver is also a significant issue. It is not just the strength that is needed. ATVs rely on shifting the body weight, e.g., as you go round a corner, and a child on a full size bike doesn’t have the sufficient weight to do this.
Dec 14 09 7:26 am
Andrei, the horse analogy is very apt but you would check out the size and temper of the horse and the ability of the child to ride/control that particular horse before you popped the child on its back.
FYI Federated Farmers has a protocol that clearly says that a child should not be allowed to ride on a full size ATV.
Dec 14 09 7:57 am
Andrei,
I’ve had 60 years of horses and two wheel farm bikes with some experience of 4 wheel bikes in the last 20 odd years..
My advice is never to ride something that outweighs you, or something you can’t kick in the guts.
JC
Dec 14 09 8:13 am
Oh Aye – Aye Aye and JC, a six year old on a full size quad is a recipe for disaster.
I had assumed (wrongly?) that the child was riding one more age appropriate – if so my response would be what ever happened to good old fashioned common sense? Sigh
Andrei´s last blog ..Catharsis: retelling the Nativity as a fable
Dec 14 09 2:42 pm
FN unbelievable that a six year-old be allowed:
– on an adult quad bike
– to go down “a sort of a steep bank”
– at an off-road motocross park
What were they thinking??
Dec 14 09 3:12 pm
You can’t legislate against stupidity.
I know an *adult* who got pined under one of those things, even though he was a pretty solid bloke. He had to wait until someone came back looking for him. He’d been operating them for a few years, and made a mistake on a modest slope.
But I’d have no problem with a responsible 10 year old driving one slowly along the flat behind a mob of sheep to save someone older walking all the way back to get it.
scrubone´s last blog ..Stop Worrying!
Dec 14 09 5:49 pm
Absolutely. What I don’t get is if these adults have ever ridden a quad they should know that you have to keep a firm grip on the handlebars and often need a fair bit of weight to hold you into the corner, something a small child just isn’t capable of.
While I am not necessarily in favour of a punishment I am in favour of charging and convicting these strange parents who let their children loose on quads which results in their injury or death (there was a farmer who killed his daughter of much the same age a couple of years back letting her ride an adult sized quad) – they really would be safer on mini motorbikes!
And at least every horse that has ever fallen over on me has got off my by itself! The bastard quad bike never did!
Dec 14 09 7:38 pm
Give Darwin a chance.