ATV Safety Tips

As spring slowly turns into summer, all of the events and activities that highlight the summertime are beginning to emerge.  One of the summertime activities that many families enjoy together is riding their ATVs.

All Terrain Vehicles, ATVs, or four-wheelers, as they are often called, provide exhilarating bursts of speed, entertaining adventure rides on trails, and loads of family fun through the summer.  But because of their raw power, open seating, and other safety concerns, the family ATV should be handled with the utmost care and caution to avoid injury this year.  The following are a few safety tips that ATV riders should strive to follow as they enjoy the adventures and fun that their machines can provide them this year.

·         Wear a helmet.  Most importantly of all, a rider should never go on an ATV without wearing the appropriate safety gear, include a helmet.  Helmets will protect the head in the case of an accident.

·         Avoid driving on paved roads.  Because of the design, ATVs are ideal for dirt trails.  But this same design that enables four-wheelers to handle the difficult terrain of off road trails makes riding them on paved roads unsafe.  Not only are they harder to control on paved roads, ATVs are less visible to motorists who are on paved roads creating a significant danger to the ATV rider due to other, and larger, vehicles 

·         Avoid steep hills.  ATVs have a tendency to roll relatively easily, which means that steep hills have the potential to flip an ATV backwards.  Similarly, driving on a side hill can cause the machine to roll on its side, causing injury to the rider.