All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) crashes are in the news almost weekly and almost always involve the death or injury of young riders.
In Pasco County, recent high school graduates, Dan Brown and Steven Villarreal, were killed in a collision on their Arctic Cat ATV. In July, two Dade City teens died when their ATV collided with a sport utility vehicle, according to an article on Tampa Bay Online.
On Saturday, September 4, four teens from Hudson were seriously injured when their ATV collided with a pickup truck in Pasco County. Two youths, ages 12 and 16, were riding together on a Honda Sports Trac ATV, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Neighbors say teens often drive in the rural Pasco County neighborhood instead of off-road, which ATVs are designed to travel.
ATV Safety
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) finds that ATVs are often used improperly. An ATV is supposed to be driven by a single rider, but the CPSC finds that tragic accidents often had young people riding together on the vehicles.
An ATV is designed to take the ruts in a rural dirt road. A rider must shift his weight to adjust to the ruts in the road which is impossible to do when there are passengers on board.
Since 1982, about 10,000 people have been killed in ATV accidents with nearly one-third under the age of 16. In 2008, nearly 38,000 children were treated in emergency rooms after being injured on ATVs. Hundreds of thousands of ATVs have been recalled for defective designs and a manufacturer who knows about a defective design may be guilty of a failure-to-warn the public.
If you or a loved one has been injured in an ATV accident in Florida, the defective design of these unstable vehicles may be to blame if the person was riding the ATV in a way that was suggested by the manufacturer. The Florida personal injury attorneys at Farah & Farah would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
