CBS casts spotlight on Yamaha Rhino flaws, instability
August 5th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
An in-depth report of Yamaha Rhinos published by CBS exposes some surprising and ironic facts surrounding the history of the popular off-road vehicle. According to the report, in July 2002, Yamaha executives gathered in an expanse of rural Kentucky to test drive prototypes for a “new generation” of off-road vehicles. These new vehicles would take off-roading to a new level, replacing the single rider ATVs that riders had to straddle, with side by side seats, a cargo compartment and a frame narrow enough to fit in the back of a standard pickup truck. These New Generation Vehicles, or NGVs as Yamaha execs called them, would later be known as the Yamaha Rhino. The first Rhino rollover injuries would occur during these test drives.
Ike Miyachi, a Yamaha vice president in charge of developing the Rhino, was riding in a prototype driven by Keisuke “Casey” Yoshida, the President of Yamaha’s U.S. operations, when the vehicle rolled over after descending a hill, injuring Miyachi’s foot.
According to company minutes obtained by CBS, Yoshida raised the safety issue during a meeting weeks after the initial rollover. “Casey wants update on instability of vehicle for future liability cases,” Yoshida noted.
Despite early signs that the Rhino had dangerous flaws, Yamaha took the vehicles to market in the fall of 2003. Unlike anything else on the ATV market at the time, the Rhinos became an instant hit. Now, almost six years after the Rhino’s debut, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says that at least 59 people have been killed in Rhino rollovers. Thousands more people have been injured with bone fractures, loss of limbs, and head injuries. More than 440 wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits against Yamaha are pending in U.S. courts. Many others have been settled out of court.
Most of the complaints cited in Rhino lawsuits relate to the vehicle’s fundamental design flaws: its narrow track width, high center of gravity, and lack of a rear differential, which make the Rhino unstable and exceptionally prone to roll over.
Some complaints allege that the vehicle’s restraint system is flawed. Seat belts can fail, leading occupants to become ejected or partially ejected from the vehicles. Still other complaints involve the lack of doors or bars that would prevent occupants from intentionally or reflexively sticking their arms or legs out of the vehicle during a rollover.
As the number of ATV rollover deaths and injuries rises with the number of vehicles sold, many safety experts say that merely warning consumers about dangerous flaws is no longer enough. Instead, they say, Yamaha and other manufacturers need to step up and create safer vehicles.
At the same time, the CPSC finally seems to be toughening its stance after years of being too lenient on manufacturers, starting back when ATVs first appeared in the mid 1980s. In 1987, the CPSC sued Yamaha and four other companies for creating and distributing an “imminently hazardous consumer product.”
Then, in an effort to reduce rollovers, the CPSC wanted to impose stability standards on ATV manufacturers. But the manufacturers fought back and won, simply promising to not make future vehicles any more dangerous than they already were.
Warnings, instead of real safety features, became the industry standard and effectively passed all liability to the consumer. According to the CBS report, “warnings about all manner of possible driver errors strengthened the industry’s hand in liability cases. The companies suddenly had a “buffet of defenses” against almost any claim.”
CBS raised the issue of ATV safety to Carrol Pollack-Nelson, formerly a CPSC psychologist and now a safety adviser to corporations. Pollack-Nelson said that the strict reliance on warnings to prevent accidents isn’t working. “You have a product that’s inherently got some pretty serious dangers,” and people use it “the way they think it’s intended to be used,” she said. “They’re not trying to drive their granny to the store … It goes fast, it goes over bumps, it goes over open terrain. Why else would they have bought the thing?”
According to the CPSC, ATV injuries serious enough to require emergency room treatment almost tripled from 52,800 in 1997 to 150,900 in 2007. The number of deaths exceeded 500 in 2001, topped 650 in 2003, and surpassed 800 in 2005. ATV deaths and injuries continue to climb despite efforts by Yamaha and other manufacturers to toughen the warnings.