Posted on 06/10/2014 1:48:12 PM PDT by Drew68
Not bad, actually, if you treat it as a tool and not a toy. Drive it as you would a tractor, and you get a similar safety record.
Not that tractors are all that safe, mind you...
The technical stuff is halfway down..
>> Boilerplate journalism.
“The police spokesmen did not comment on whether or not the driver was in possession of an assault rifle or handgun at the time of the accident.”
Is she the swimmer in the “Tommie Copper” ads I have been seeing?
According to a witness, Van Dyken “launched” over a curb Friday afternoon in an ATV area in Arizona known as Torreon ... and plummeted 5 to 7 feet ... before crashing into the ground.
Paramedics raced to the scene and found Amy conscious but unable to move her toes or her feet. She also could not feel anything touching her legs.
According to the crash report, obtained by TMZ Sports, Amy’s husband told officials Amy was NOT consuming any alcohol that evening.
Her husband, Thomas Rouen, also told officials “just a couple days prior he had switched the throttle mechanism on the ATV from a thumb accelerator to a twist accelerator. [He] was unsure if that may have caused a problem in how Amy was used to operating the ATV.”
The report notes Amy was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.
Now, Amy’s family has released a statement saying her husband Tom was by her side when a helicopter arrived to transport her to a hospital in Scottsdale where “an amazing team of doctors performed emergency surgery to repair her spine and stabilize her.”
The family says, “Amy’s spinal cord was completely severed at the T11 vertebrae, but, miraculously, a broken vertebrae stopped within millimeters of rupturing her aorta, and she did not suffer any head trauma.”
“Amy awoke within hours of surgery acting like her typical spunky, boisterous, ebullient self and has spent the last 24 hours entertaining her family and her medical staff in the ICU. She has made at least one male nurse blush. Amy’s attitude has been overwhelmingly positive and optimistic. She has been far more of a comfort to us than we have been to her.”
http://www.tmz.com/2014/06/09/amy-van-dyken-spinal-cord-completely-severed/#ixzz34H3mOMOG
Amy Van Dyken-Rouen @amyvandyken · 4h
Making progress.. First day I sat up. Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers. http://instagram.com/p/pEm_ivtZYc/
https://twitter.com/amyvandyken
ATV’s are fun, utilitarian -— and can be dangerous. (Do we want the nanny gov’t to ban everything that can be dangerous? NO!!!!)
I bought a 3-wheeler 30 years ago, and still have it. Because the design was inherently unstable, they are no longer made or sold, and it’s illegal to ride them, except on private property.
Mine has a small, 125cc motor which was adequate for hauling around an adult, even one of considerable girth and weight. It also has a low, high-torque gear range that makes it capable of flipping over backwards under certain conditions. Not long after I bought mine, they started making them with much larger, more powerful motors, and they could go a lot faster - a recipe for disaster for young and/or inexperienced riders. Add a little alcohol to the mix, and watch out!
In my opinion, the risk of accident increases in direct proportion to the inexperience, stupidity and carelelessness of the rider. Like SUVs, the machines, themselves, don’t maim or kill.
But they have no roll bar, and that’s a potential disaster.
Because, unless you’re driving slow on flat pavement all the time, you have 2 choices when they inevitably flip - stay attached to it and get crushed, or get launched airborne.
Yeah, what fun.
In an age when even small lawn & garden tractors have a roll bar, it’s not really necessary to do without one, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen one on a quad ATV or even a snowmobile. Can’t cost all that much, don’t see how it would adversely affect functionality.
A roll bar would not have prevented this woman from severing her spine, however. There are risks in life. Sometimes the adverse ones hit home.
Prayers for this woman and her family.
i thought they were safer than the trikes they were made to replace. i had a couple of them fall on me back in the day while mudding.
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