Kent County, Michigan

They're supposed to be fun, off-road recreational vehicles for adults.  But the ATVs that zip through fields, wooded trails, and even on roadways throughout Michigan and beyond, have become death machines for many.  Friday, an 18-year-old Whitehall boy became the state's latest ATV fatality.  A talented three-sport athlete, the young man was not wearing a helmet when he was killed while driving a friend's ATV in Kent County.  He is the seventh area person known to have died in an ATV accident since 1982, when the off-road vehicles were first built.  Last year, two area deaths were reported.  Through 2006, Michigan ranked seventh in the nation in ATV deaths with 280. Thirteen people died last year in ATV crashes on public roads in Michigan.  Government statistics for ATV fatalaties this year are not yet available, but Friday's victim was the first central Michigan area person to die on a four-wheeler in 2007.

Nearly 20 years ago, the federal government declared ATVs an "imminent hazard" and forced manufacturers to drop unstable 3-wheel models in favor of the 4-wheelers sold today.  Regulators also compelled the ATV industry to adopt safety warnings and offer rider training to reduce accidents.  Since then, federal officials have done little more than tally the dead, and the failure of their approach can be seen in the grim body counts coast to coast.  The rate of injuries per ATV has barely budged from where it stood after the government acted in 1988.  Though death rates initially plummeted as 3-wheelers disappeared, there's been scant improvement since. 

Over the past decade, ATVs have soared in popularity, with 7.6 million in use.  The result:  Record numbers of riders end up in emergency rooms and morgues as ATV accidents kill about 800 people a year and injure an estimated 136,700.  "This is one of the worst examples ever of a government agency failing in its fundamental mission to protect the American public," Stuart M. Statler, a former U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission member, said of the agency's inability to significantly reduce ATV deaths and injuries during the past two decades.  Nearly 8,000 people have died in ATV crashes since the commission began counting, and 2 million have been seriously hurt.  Fully, a quarter of the dead and nearly a third of the injured are children.

Safety risks haven't dented the allure of ATVs.  Over the past decade, sales tripled to $5 billion a year as companies introduced bigger, faster models.  Though companies have added new features such as four-wheel drive and power steering, they haven't eliminated a long-standing problem: overturns.  The machines flip over with punishing regularity -- smashing faces, breaking necks, crushing chests.  Major manufacturers -- Honda, Polaris, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Arctic Cat and Bombardier now CanAm -- insist their machines are safe and stable if operated properly.  They fault riders for accidents.  "The safety issue is with the appropriate use," said a lawyer for ATV market leader Honda.  "It's how people use the machines."

But reckless riders are only part of the problem.  The federal government has not extensively tested ATV stability since at least 1991.  An engineering firm hired by The Oregonian newspaper of Portland, Ore., tested the stability of four popular ATV models and concluded they were dangerously prone to overturns.  The newspaper also analyzed fatal crashes and reached a surprising finding: "Overturns were as common among riders who appeared to be obeying basic safety warnings as among those who didn't."  Together, the results point to the role that ATV design plays in many crashes, yet regulators have largely ignored it.  Meanwhile, abundant evidence shows that riders don't follow the warnings and decline free training programs, the key tenets of the government and industry approach to safety.

Federal records show that more than half of those who die on ATVs perish in crashes where the machines roll over sideways or flip forward or backward.  In some cases, overturns happen after the ATV hits something or tumbles off a steep drop.  But about a third of the time, the government data show, rollovers are only the first known event in a fatal crash.  And as ATV companies make heavier machines, overturns pose an increasing danger.  ATV companies are quick to point out the large number of crashes in which riders ignore warnings.  That is true more than 80 percent of the time in the government's database of fatal crashes.  But failure to comply with warnings doesn't explain all rollovers.  ATV manufacturers don't dispute that their machines can roll or flip.  Instead, they argue ATVs are a special breed of vehicle they describe as "rider-active."

In other words, according to the manufacturers of these vehicles, "it's up to ATV operators to keep the ATV from overturning" by shifting their body weight from side to side, or front to back, as the trail or road conditions require.

Now, let Dad explain the importance of this concept to the 6-year-old he just placed on the seat of a 250cc Sport ATV.  Oh sure, when asked "Do you understand?" he'll nod his head and say "Yes Daddy."

Does he understand the consequences of not getting it right?

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 Be SAFE out there!