Ride CT & Ride New England Serving New England, NYC and The Hudson Valley!
By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com
Motorcycle deaths always make headlines, and the reasons for them are well known. Distracted and unobservant drivers, alcohol and inadequate rider skills all contribute. Less is written about off-road fatalities and the results of new study by Johns Hopkins researchers released Wednesday revealed that four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles are much deadlier than two-wheeled dirt bikes.
In fact, data on nearly 50,000 accident victims who received trauma care between 2002 and 2006 showed that ATV riders were 50 percent more likely to die. The data tracked what happened to 13,749 patients involved in off-road motorcycle accidents and 44,509 patients who were riding ATVs. The severity of injuries was similar for both groups, yet ATV riders were also 50 percent likely to require admission to an intensive care unit and need mechanical ventilation.
About 60 percent of the motorcyclists in the study were wore helmets, compared to only 30 percent for ATVers. “But even when both types of patients were wearing helmets, the person on the ATV did much worse than the person on the motorcycle,” said trauma surgeon Dr. Adil Haider, who is an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The researchers concluded while that ATVs might be suitable for teenagers and older children, they are not appropriate for youngsters. “Parents may think that ATVs are less dangerous than motorcycles because they have four wheels. But they should know that ATVs not only are not safer, they are probably more dangerous because the injuries people have after the accidents are so severe,” said Dr. Haider.
The study placed part of the blame on ATV dealers, who try to upsize customers by selling parents on larger ATVs that their children can grow into. Dr. Stephen Bowman, a public health scientist with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, explained, “You go to a dealer and say, ‘I want to buy my nine-year-old a small ATV.’ But the dealer will try to sell you an ATV big enough for a 13-year-old. The problem is that smaller children end up using ATVs that have a lot of power and a significant amount of weight that could cause more serious injuries if they have an accident.”
