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Driving an all terrain vehicle, ATV, is one of the most dangerous things you can allow your child to do. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, which regulates All Terrain Vehicles, studied 33 sports and activities which children engage in, including skateboarding, wrestling, football, bicycling, snowboarding. Of the 33, the activity with the highest risk of hospitalization was ATV driving. It was 61% more dangerous than the second place activity, football.

About 100 children die every year in ATV accidents in the US. Another 40,000 have injuries serious enough to be treated in emergency rooms. Continue reading ‘Don't Let Your Child Drive an ATV!’ »

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission regulates over 15,000 products. All terrain vehicles, ATV’s, top the Commission’s list as the deadliest product in their portfolio. Each year more than 900 people, many of them children, die from these off-road vehicles. Now an even more dangerous type of ATV has appeared. Looking for a way to break into the lucrative US market, Chinese manufacturers have produced smaller, cheaper ATV’s and marketed these as vehicles for children. Where youth models of established ATV brands like Yamaha and Honda can cost upwards of $2000, prices for Chinese ATV’s for children and youth average $500.

ATV’s are a $5 billion market, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission is concerned about the influx of these small, cheap, vehicles from China. The Commission has recently adopted a set of mandatory safety standards for all ATV’s sold in the US. Continue reading ‘ATVs From China – Danger Ahead!’ »