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January was a deadly month across North America for teenagers riding all-terrain vehicles. ATV accidents are responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of serious injuries each year. Especially alarming is the growing number of accidents involving children and teenagers, who account for a third of all injuries and fatalities linked to ATV crashes.
City, county, and state officials are banding together in many parts of the country to offer all-terrain-vehicle awareness and safety events. The need for more ATV safety instruction and awareness events increases as the number of people who become seriously injured or killed in rollovers and other ATV accidents continues to grow.
A Georgia teenager died and another one was seriously injured Saturday night in an all-terrain vehicle crash. The accident occurred in the southern part of rural Chattooga County, situated just south of Chattanooga, Tenn. and east of Ft. Payne, Ala.
Another child has been killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident in Alabama. According to Mobile and Pensacola area press reports, 3-year old girl London Johnson was riding on an ATV with her grandfather, Arthur Lee Rivers, 43, and Isces Johnson, 5 years old, Monday evening when the accident occurred.
A 13-year-old Alabama girl died earlier this month when the Polaris ATV she was riding in rolled over. Emily Dunnam, a resident of Fairhope, Ala., had been visiting relatives in another part of town when the accident occurred. Her cousin was driving the ATV across a field to see some horses that belonged to a neighboring family. Authorities said that the driver could have turned too sharply, causing the vehicle to pitch. Dunnam hit her head when the ATV toppled. Family members tried unsuccessfully to revive her at the scene while waiting for emergency responders to arrive, but it was too late.
An ATV rollover has claimed the life of a 26-year-old Alabama man in Washington County, Alabama. Justin Threadgill, a resident of Bay Minette, Ala., was killed Saturday night while he and his brother, Jeremy Threadgill, were driving up the side of an incline that locals refer to as “the mountain.” According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, the ATV was halfway up the incline when it rolled over on top of the men.
21-year-old Jessica Lynne Braithwaite, a resident of Elkmont, Alabama, a community north of Huntsville near the Tennessee line, died last week after losing control of the all-terrain vehicle she was driving. Braithewaite’s ATV ran off the road and into a barbed wire fence. According to authorities, both Braithwaite and 26-year-old Jonathan Barnes, a passenger, were thrown from the vehicle. Braithewaite died at the scene while Barnes was airlifted to Huntsville Hospital, where he remains in serious condition in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.
Lauren Dilworth’s family, friends, schoolmates, and teachers gathered near the entrance of Lewisburg Middle-High School in Lewisburg, Mississippi, to remember the 11-year-old girl who tragically lost her life last October when the Yamaha Rhino ATV she was riding in rolled over. Lauren and her family had moved to DeSoto County from Alabama last June. Lauren attended the school for just a few weeks before the accident occurred in October.
There appears to be some debate about classifying vehicles such as the Yamaha Rhino as an Off Road Vehicle (ORV), sometimes also called Off Highway Vehicle (OHV), versus an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV). While ATVs are also classified as ORVs or OHVs, because they are designed to be operated off standard asphalt highway surfaces, not all OHVs can be called ATVs, according to a story recently published in The Northern Times, serving Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada.
