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Mayhem on wheels: millions of people drive all-terrain vehicles for recreation and utility purposes, but accidents are common and safeguards are lacking. Here's how to traverse the legal terrain.

Article Excerpt
This summer, several hundred people are likely to be killed and tens of thousands injured and maimed in all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accidents. Worse, up to a third of the victims will be children under 16 years old. (1)

According to U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports, this summer's toll is predictable, as ATV casualty counts have skyrocketed since 1998, when a 10-year-old consent decree between the CPSC and leading ATV manufacturers expired. Indeed, the commission estimates that annual ATV deaths have nearly doubled since then, to more than 700 in 2004. Injuries requiring emergency room treatment have doubled as well, to more than 136,000 per year. (2)

ATVs were first marketed in the 1970s as motorized, tricycle-like, off-road recreational and light-utility machines. Casualties began to add up in the 1980s, and in 1988, the CPSC consent decree banned the sale of three-wheel ATVs and imposed voluntary standards on the industry for marketing, safety training, warnings, and advertising.

In the 1990s, four-wheel ATVs became more popular, and more than 7 million are now reportedly in use. Annual ATV sales exceed 800,000 units, funding a multibillion-dollar industry. (3)

According to the CPSC, the growth in ATV popularity did not trigger a statistically significant increase in casualties until 1998, when the consent decree expired. Since then, statistically significant casualty count increases have been tabulated each year, and the CPSC reports that the increased casualties cannot be solely explained by the increase in ATV use.

Several factors probably account for the apparent correlation between the consent decree's expiration and the spikes in ATV injuries and deaths. First, the ATV industry put its advertising pedals to the floor beginning in 1998. According to data published by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), ATV advertising expenditures went up at least 6.5 times from 1996 to 2001. (4) The ad campaigns hyped performance, speed, and competition, factors that probably appeal to younger, less careful ATV users.

Second, the horsepower, speed, and acceleration capabilities of four-wheel ATVs also increased dramatically in the late 1990s, with many new aggressive racing machines debuting after the consent decree expired. Many new manufacturers--who were not bound by the consent decree in the first place--entered this expanding market.

Finally, perhaps most important, even the consent decree did not deal with the fundamental design questions relating to the four-wheel ATVs' stability, handling, and control. Instead, the consent decree and the industry's voluntary standards focused mainly on rider behavior and encouraged training and warnings as defenses against children riding ATVs and other behavior that caused casualties.

Thus, while it is accurate to say that the ATV manufacturers complied with the consent decree, it is also valid to conclude that a greater danger lurked within the machines' design. Such design problems were exposed by the post-consent decree boom in casualties, fueled by the explosive growth in high-powered, high-speed ATVs entering the market without corresponding design enhancements for safety or restrictions on their sales for use by children or less-experienced riders.

Perceiving an epidemic of danger to children, in October 2002, the CFA joined the American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations to file a petition asking the CPSC to ban all ATVs that are sold for use by children under 16. (5) Late last year, partly in response to that petition, the CPSC commissioners unanimously voted to investigate the ATV safety crisis and consider regulatory action....