According to the lawsuit, the rollover occurred on “relatively flat terrain.” The vehicle tipped over on the passenger side where the plaintiff was seated.

Like many other lawsuits pending against Yamaha in the Unites States, the suit filed in Texarkana claims that the Rhino “was placed in the stream of commerce in a defective condition, unreasonably dangerous to the users thereof, and not fit for its intended use and reasonably foreseeable purposes.”

The suit also claims that warnings and operating instructions for the Rhino were negligently inadequate.

The plaintiff seeks damages for health care expenses, physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical disability and impairment, disfigurement, lost wages, loss of wage earning capacity, loss of consortium, loss of household services, pre- and post-judgment interest.

46 deaths and hundreds of injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to the Yamaha Rhino’s defective design and performance. The unusually high number of deaths and injuries linked to Yamaha’s signature UTV prompted the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission to recall the vehicles last March. Owners may take their Rhinos to their local dealership to have a series of safety improvements installed. No new vehicles are to be sold until the same upgrades have been completed.

More than 200 product liability lawsuits have been filed in U.S. courts by Rhino victims and their families.

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Texas woman seeks damages for injuries sustained in Rhino rollover

The CPSC’s investigation of Rhino accidents found that an unreasonably high number of rollover-related deaths and injuries occurred while the vehicles were driven at low speeds and on flat terrain. Since 2003, when the Rhino first debuted on the U.S. market, it has been blamed for 46 deaths and hundreds of injuries, many of which are serious and life-altering. Consumers have filed some 200 lawsuits in U.S. courts.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Rhinos are not just popular recreational vehicles in Australia. Farmers, Surf Life Saving patrols (a national association of lifeguards), and Rural Fire Brigades also use them in their daily tasks.

Surf Life Saving Australia told the Daily telegraph that Yamaha assured them that “there are no safety concerns with the Rhino” and that it’s not offering the repair program in Australia because “when the user guidelines are followed, the Rhino is a safe and extremely capable side-by-side vehicle.”

The SLSA also told the Daily Telegraph that it implements driver training programs developed specifically for the Rhino. However, Yamaha told the association that “typical use” of the vehicles in the U.S. differed significantly from the SLSA’s use, and that “safety issues are not replicated here.”

So, in other words, Americans are irresponsible (if not reckless) Rhino drivers, the CPSC’s concerns are unfounded, and there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with the Rhino’s design, even though more people are killed or maimed while using them than any other UTV?

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Yamaha Australia offers no Rhino safety recall

The Sands lost their 10-year-old daughter Ellie when the Rhino she was a passenger in rolled over, crushing her head between the ground and the vehicle’s unpadded roll cage. The accident occurred when the driver, traveling at 15 mph on flat terrain, attempted to make a right turn. Ellie suffered a massive brain injury and died the following day.

Since Ellie’s death, the Sands have courageously turned their grief into a positive effort to call attention to the dangers of the Yamaha Rhino. They forged alliances with families of other victims who were killed or injured in Rhino rollovers and they flooded the CPSC with testimonies. Then, after months of investigations, the CPSC announced what is effectively a recall of the Rhinos.

The CPSC has advised all Rhino owners to immediately stop driving their UTVs until Yamaha makes a series of repairs and improvements to the vehicles, free of charge, at a Yamaha dealership. Yamaha Motor Co. has advised all its dealerships to discontinue selling additional Rhino 450, 660, and 700 models until those same modifications have been performed. The modifications are intended to give the Rhino more stability and reduce the chances of being maimed or killed in a rollover.

John and Tammy Sand can now share a sense of accomplishment, and they are pleased that the CPSC pushed Yamaha to take a step in the right direction.

“It made us feel good,” Sands told the Middletown Journal. “I don’t want to take credit for this, but it’s a fight we took up for Ellie.”

Resources: Ellie’s Mission Page; Yamaha Motor Co.; CPSC; Middletown Journal

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Parents of Yamaha Rhino victim happy about ‘recall’

Those words were written by Heidi Crow, whose 9-year-old son Jeremy Todd “J.T.” perished on June 22, 2007 when the new Yamaha Rhino 450 he was a passenger in rolled over. J.T.’s older sister Madison was driving the Rhino on at their grandparents’ property when it tipped over suddenly while traveling at a low speed.

The Rhino rolled over on its side just a quarter of a turn, but it was enough to throw J.T. from the vehicle even though he was properly belted. The boy suffered massive head and neck injuries when the Rhino’s unpadded steel roll cage pinned him to the ground, underneath a thousand pounds of weight.

Emergency personnel rushed J.T. to a hospital in Jasper, Texas where he was pronounced dead.

“The seat belt system failed to restrain him. Nor was the Rhino equipped with doors and safety netting that could have kept J.T. inside the Rhino and saved his life,” writes Heidi Crow.

In August 2007, just weeks after J.T.’s death, Yamaha began issuing safety doors and hand grips for its Rhinos as a means of reducing the number of people who are seriously injured in Rhino rollovers. The announcement, which was made in the form of a “special offer,” told Rhino owners that Yamaha would retro-fit doors and handholds free of charge.

But Yamaha still hasn’t addressed the causes for all the rollovers, which include the ATV’s high center of gravity, narrow track width and wheels, and other design flaws.

According to his mother, “J.T. was a very smart and beautiful boy. He excelled at academics and sports, but most special was his compassion for others and gift for making people feel important.”

While J.T.’s life was cut short, his family lives on to spread the word about the dangers of Yamaha Rhinos. Heidi Crow believes it is now her responsibility to “help save others from a tragic fate like J.T.’s.”

“His memory will go on, and his story will be told as long as it needs to be told to save lives,”she  says on a website devoted to his memory.

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Family of boy killed in Rhino rollover establishes memorial fund

The woman filed her lawsuit in January in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. According to a report in the Southeast Texas Record, her suit, like the other suits filed against Yamaha throughout the county, alleges that the “Rhino is excessively prone to tip over even at low speeds, on flat or slight grade terrain, and while conducting safe turns.”

The suit suggests that Yamaha manufactures the Rhino knowing that the ATV’s instability and lack of safety features makes it a dangerous ride for passengers. She argues that the ATV not only has a narrow track width and high center of gravity, but that its heavy, unpadded roll cage can harm passengers rather than them during a rollover incident.

The Southeast Texas Record points out that Yamaha sent letters to Yamaha owners in 2007 which instructed them to keep their arms and legs inside the vehicle in the event of a rollover. What Yamaha doesn’t explain in the letter is how passengers and their children can recall these words of advice in the middle of a terrifying rollover. Nor does it describe how passengers can defy the laws of physics during an accident, preventing limbs from exiting the ATV as it tips or tumbles.

The suit seeks damages for medical expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and pain and mental anguish. It also seeks punitive damages of an unspecified amount, alleging that Yamaha acted “in a malicious, wanton, willful, fraudulent and reckless manner evincing such an entire want of care as to raise the presumption of a conscious indifference to the consequences.”

More than 100,000 Rhinos have been sold since Yamaha started selling them in 2003.

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Texas woman sues Yamaha for daughter injured in Rhino rollover