All-Terrain Vehicles Are Causing Over 100,000 Serious Injuries a Year

Sales of ATVs are growing fast. The four-wheeled vehicles, which are designed to cover rough terrain at close to highway speeds, are now a $3 billion a year business. More ATVs were sold in the U.S. last year than small pickup trucks.

But unfortunately, what’s also growing is the number of ATV injuries. In 2002, the last year for which figures are available, ATVs resulted in an astonishing 113,900 injuries requiring treatment in a hospital emergency room, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. That’s twice the number from five years ago.

What’s particularly sad is that so many of the injuries are happening to children. Since 1992, a third of the people who have been injured by ATVs have been children under 16. And during that period, children under 12 accounted for 14% of all ATV deaths.

With more than 100,000 people being injured every year, you’d think the government might step in and do something. But so far, that hasn’t happened. The National Highway Traffic Safety Commission has the authority to regulate highway vehicles, but it has no authority over ATVs because they’re designed for off-road use. As for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it can step in where a product is defective, but the problem with ATVs is not

that they’re badly made, it’s that what they’re designed to do is itself dangerous.

So that means it’s up to the individual states to protect consumers. And many of the states have done very little, thanks to lobbying by ATV dealers who stand to profit from more sales.

Consider:

• Only 10 states require that ATV users possess a driver’s license. Some 17 other states have a minimum age for driving an ATV, but most of them allow 12-year-olds to drive. And 23 states allow children to drive no matter how young they are.

• Only 20 states require ATV users to wear helmets.

• Some 16 states allow ATVs to be used on paved roads, even though the vehicles are typically very hard to control on paved roads because the tires are designed for off- road use.

Much more could be done. For instance, a great many injuries result from people riding as passengers on ATVs, and from children riding on ATVs that are designed for adults. Yet these practices are generally unregulated.

ATVs are fun, and they can be a good form of recreation. But there’s no question that an industry that injures more than 300 Americans a day needs to take a lot more responsibility for consumer safety.

Arc Welding Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

An Illinois jury recently found that exposure to fumes from arc welding had caused an early onset of Parkinson’s Disease, and awarded damages to the welder. Now, many more welders are suing, claiming that they were injured by the fumes.

Arc welding is a way of melting metal with an electrode and a welding

rod. The intense heat produces manganese fumes. Many welders now say that the fumes are dangerous, and that the companies that made the equipment should have warned them about proper ventilation and other steps they could have taken to protect themselves.

U.S. Will Act to Ban Ephedra — But What About Other Dietary Supplements?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to ban ephedra, the diet supplement that has been blamed for 155 deaths over the last decade — including those of several high-profile athletes.

But what about the many other dietary supplements that are now sold over-the-counter, claiming to boost energy, sports performance and weight loss?

The FDA publishes a list of many of these supplements that are known to have caused liver and kidney disease, high blood pressure, paralysis and even death. There is also evidence that some supplements interfere with prescription medicines. Why doesn’t the FDA act?

The reason is a 1994 law (lobbied for by the supplements industry) that exempts supplements from most government regulation. Unlike drugs, which have to be tested and proven to be safe before they’re sold, supplements can be sold unless the government can definitively prove them to be harmful. That means a lot of people have to die

before the government can take a product off the market.

In fact, the government can’t even require supplement makers to turn over reports that they have received from consumers who were injured by their products. So even if a supplement maker learns that its product is causing serious injuries or deaths, it can legally keep that fact a secret from the FDA.

St. John’s Wort, Bitter Orange, Kava Kava and other products have been implicated in some serious injuries, but they are still on the market.

However, even if the government can’t do much about harmful products, the manufacturers may still face justice in the courtroom. Recently, for instance, a jury in Texas awarded $1 million to the parents of a young man who took ephedra and then died during an Army physical fitness test. Verdicts like this one raise public awareness and should make companies think twice before releasing harmful products to an unsuspecting public.

Newspaper Sued Though ‘Technically’ It Told the Truth

Ordinarily, you can’t sue someone for libel if they told the truth. But sometimes, a newspaper or other publication can be sued if it “technically” told the truth but carelessly created a wrong impression.

This is known as representing someone in a “false light.”

For instance, a newspaper in Florida wrote an article recently about the political dealings of an influential businessman. At one point, the article

mentioned that the man had “shot and killed his wife.”

The wife’s death had been ruled a hunting accident. But the way the newspaper presented the facts created the impression for some readers that he had committed murder.

A jury found that the article, while technically true, had created a “false light,” and it awarded the man damages.

Tell Us About Injuries Even If You Think They’re Your Fault

We always advise our clients to tell us about any serious injuries, even if you think the injury was all your fault or was nobody’s fault. Sometimes a lawyer can determine things about an accident that aren’t immediately obvious.

For instance, 26-year-old Sara Smith was killed in a crash on an icy roadway in Washington when she lost control of her car. A state investigation found that the accident was Sara’s fault because she was driving too fast for road conditions.

However, her husband hired a lawyer who did some additional investigation. The lawyer concluded that the state Department of Transportation had improperly maintained the highway, with the result that dangerous ice was allowed to form.

At trial, a jury found that the state was 73% responsible for the accident, and it awarded Sara’s family $1.3 million.

In another case, a boy was hit by a truck while walking to a bus stop in the early morning. It was dark out, the boy had on dark clothing, and the truck driver apparently couldn’t see him until it was too late.

The boy’s family went to a lawyer, who investigated the accident and concluded that the real cause of the accident was that a streetlight wasn’t working. The Florida Supreme Court said the family could sue the utility company for not living up to its contract with the city to maintain the streetlights.

Moral: Never just assume you know who is legally responsible fo an injury.