My dad, who raced motorcycles for 25 years, was at some sort of family gathering or something, hopped on an ATV, promptly flipped it and broke his wrist. This is a man who had been riding motorcycles for, I dunno 50-60 years.
I don’t have kids, but if I did, ATVs would be off the table. Minibikes, karts, full size motorcycles, all that would be fine by me. But no ATVs.
Out of curiosity, how often have you ridden standard 4-wheelers yourself and how aggressively? People with plenty of experience with them keep telling you the risk is not “minuscule” at all. They are inherently unstable and uniquely dangerous from my perspective. This comes from someone that has owned them as well as go-karts, horses, snowmobiles, motorcycles and dirt bikes. You can get hurt or killed on any of them but ATV’s are in a special category of dangerous. You know you have problems when people consider something more dangerous than a motorcycle.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children under 16 not be allowed to ride on them let alone drive them at all. I don’t think they should be banned or anything like that. People can hurt or kill themselves however they choose. They can be useful farm and hunting vehicles as well without too much danger as long as the rider has skill, sense and keeps it fairly slow.
However, recreational and stunt riding is inherently dangerous on a 4-wheeler. They beg you to try faster speeds and harder terrain until you learn how bad their handling is by flipping it or smashing it into a tree or worse. People generally don’t do well when they get ejected from or pinned by a huge machine after a high speed rollover or impact with an obstacle.
Here are visualizations if anyone can’t picture how it happens. I have done many of those myself because it it really easy to do.
I grew up in a relatively rural area where ATVs were a big thing, and 9-10 was the youngest that I can recall. It was definitely becoming a big thing for a certain clique of kids around 10-12.
Still wouldn’t let my kids anywhere near one until at least 16, and probably until out-of-my-house-on-your-own-time. Lots of interesting casts and splits in that clique that I want no part of.
When she moved out and lived on her own , and not while she lived under my roof! and I am so glad she never did ride one !
I’m not sure why you keep arguing with me instead of disproving the cites. I presented the best numbers I can find. Those numbers do show the risk to be miniscule. Anecdote can’t change that.
The AAP comes out against anything that has the slightest chance of injuring a child, it’s what they do. Real risk is not their forte.
You do what you think is right for your family, I was just putting the real risk in context.
Kids these days! We rode bikes powered by our legs! And we liked it!!!
I wouldn’t let a kid under 16 operate one, and certainly not without some training. Sometimes I wonder what parents are thinking…
This is, IMO, critical. Sure, they can be very dangerous if done “aggressively.” As can many things. I flipped one one of the first times I rode, going uphill, I shifted improperly. Not aggressive, just stupid. But, I was going slowly at the time, and never repeated that. Had one of my little kids on with me at the time, but was easily able to direct the machine away from us. Actually was a good lesson on how easy it was to make mistakes, and the need to be careful.
For the longest time, I had the kids drive only in a flat open area, and never going over 2d gear. Then 3d. Graduated to 2-tracks thru woods. Never allowed 4th unless in that field. Always had them wear helmets, and always repeated that if they were stupid and reckless, they could fuck themselves up. Fortunately, they never were that stupid and reckless (or were lucky when they were and I didn’t know about it.)
Never. I hate those things and no child of mine would ever ride one if I had any say in the matter. Ditto snow mobiles, jet skis or anything other such thing.
Never. My kid has been riding 50cc dirt bikes since he was 5, but he’s forbidden to ride an ATV. Those things are death traps.
Oh yes it can. I am arguing with you because you are extremely wrong. Reality does not change based on your numbers.
You are making the condescending mistake of claiming that “anecdotes do not equal data” when that is not factually or logically true in the first place. An individual, accurate anecdote can be a very valid datum and multiple ones are data by definition. People keep telling you that ATV’s are dangerous based on lots of personal experience and yet you refuse to believe it because you looked up some numbers of dubious quality on the internet and concluded that the risk is “minuscule” which is insulting on its own based on all the people that have become killed, permanently or partially disabled by them. As far as I can tell, you have never ridden one yourself but you can correct me if that isn’t true.
Did it ever occur to you that the numbers (as bad as they already are) may be incomplete and that people that have lots of experience with ATV’s may have some valid points? That is called using lies, damned lies and statistics. I am a huge fan of statistics myself and have even taught it in the Ivy League but I know its limitations. Sometimes you just have to go straight to the people that actually use the things you are trying to measure to see what is really going on.
3-wheelers were effectively banned because they were one of the worst consumer products ever invented. They were replaced by 4-wheelers that are marginally better but still incredibly dangerous without lots of training and constant due diligence.
Did you watch the video I posted above of ATV accidents? Most of those aren’t people doing extreme stunts. It is just flipovers and rollovers during common activities. That is what they do best.
The problem is they are fun as all hell so you continue to do it until you get truly hurt but you can’t predict when that will happen because it could at any time. I don’t know what the real number of overall injuries are and I doubt that anyone does because most of them are never reported. It is only the serious cases that get recorded but there are countless other people that get sprains, broken ribs, head injuries and concussions that never even go to the ER.
If you think that type of injury is “minuscule”, your threshold is much higher than mine.
Problem with asking these kinds of questions
If 10,000 people half killed themselves, and 72,000,000 had no issues what so ever
only the 10,000 are going to respond, the 72,000,000 had no issues and most don’t care to comment.
So you are going to get 10,000 issues of this is terrible, it should be banned, and not many the other way.
It’s like giving out those feed back questionnaires, how was our service.
Those that had nothing to complain about mostly wont fill out the thing, only the ones that hated everything will it out, in triplicate, every time.
To answer the OP question.
Depends on stupid my non existent child proves themselves to be.
If they dont have the brains god gave a pig, probably never.
For some people, anything is dangerous anymore.
When i was a kid, someone getting really messed up riding their bicycle was so strange, so totally unreal, you never heard of it.
No i don’t mean something like a bike gets run over by a car, i mean like 8 kids in the same town suffering life altering brain injuries because they fell off their bikes, so everyone’s head is wrapped in 6 inches of dense Styrofoam.
That seems a lot, in the same town, having those injuries, in a few years time?
Bicycles are not new, and they don’t go any faster than they used to.
So what in the equation changed?
Used to send 7 year old junior out with his 22, now junior will wind up shooting himself.
Used to let junior run the old 3 wheel tractor out to haul hay, now junior will most definitely roll the tractor and die.
Junior can’t have a pocket knife, he will cut or stab himself.
Why? what happened to junior there? How come now he can off himself with a box of tinker toys?
Reality is not based on facts. Interesting concept.
I never said that, I said that your anecdotes don’t change the statistics. That is a fact. Anecdotes are already baked into the data I cited. Maybe you know all ~37k young riders who were seriously injured or killed in an ATV accident that year and none of the one who weren’t. You then have 37k pieces of anecdotal evidence for injury/death and none against. It’s absolutely data and it would certainly skew your view, but that doesn’t change the relative risk.
I acknowledged that the fact of the matter is, when an accident occurs, the resulting injuries are more severe for ATV’s than other motorized vehicles. I enumerated some reasons. Why you continue to attack me is baffling.
It isn’t germane to the conversation, whether I have or have not doesn’t change relative risk. Further, I don’t fit the “young rider” demographic being discussed in this thread.
Find cites with “real” numbers and post them. My cites are legitimate. If you can find better I’d love to see them. Be sure to compare apples to apples, though. Your last numbers expanded the numerator from “young riders” to “all riders” but you didn’t expand the denominator accordingly.
And this is where you keep veering off course. I never said the injuries were miniscule, I said (supported by numbers from several cites) that the relative risk of injury to any given rider is minuscule - 1/3rd of 1% of all young riders will be seriously injured or killed. It’s the exact same thing as injuries from failed amusement park rides. When it happens, the injuries are generally severe or fatal - it just doesn’t happen often. I still let my kids ride age/size appropriate amusement park rides.