Riding Right: Some states ignore federal guidance geared to protect children from driving ATVs

— Kate Bruggenschmidt was 11 years old and weighed just 75 pounds when she climbed atop a 750-pound ATV for a joy ride with a friend.

Every year, according to estimates from the CPSC, ATVs are responsible for more than 100,000 trips to emergency rooms across the country. Kate was driving an adult-sized ATV with one of her teammates on the back. Neither were wearing helmets. The ATV tipped over, and while the teammate had enough time to jump off the back, Kate did not.“She was on an adult-size ATV wearing no safety gear,” Bruggenschmidt said.“ATVs were not our lifestyle. She was very, very, inexperienced. She had never driven an ATV before,” Bruggenschmidt said.

The federal agency was tasked alongside ATV industry leaders with creating both voluntary and mandatory consumer product safety standards. Those standards were meant to be updated as the machines evolved. According to that same report, the CPSC estimated that number, 69,000 of those injured were younger than 12. Most were boys.

Some states, like Minnesota, allow children as young as 10 to ride ATVs as long as the child has previously taken a safety course. In one of her first projects with the nonprofit organization, Weintraub worked to address children being injured in incidents involving all-terrain vehicles that were too large and powerful for them to safely operate.

“We know what we need to do to make these vehicles safer for these numbers to go down dramatically, but it’s not in place yet,” Weintraub said. “We really need to think about the best ways to ensure that children are on vehicles that are the right size and powerfulness for them.”“ATVs and side by side together are responsible for the greatest number of deaths in our jurisdiction,” CSPC Commissioner Richard Trumka said.

According to data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2018 to 2022, there have been 1,602 deaths on ATVs.CSPC Commissioner Trumka, an ATV owner himself, said the agency is constantly updating its standards to protect families, but he does question if the standards have gone far enough to prevent deaths.

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