Health care writer Tom Breen highlights West Virginia's lack of solid statistics on the number of and details behind all-terrain vehicle deaths in the Mountain State, in this story for The Associated Press.
It's a compelling "lede:"
"When 50-year-old Pentress resident Randy Marshall was killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident in Mingo County on Sunday, it was the 13th such death this year. Or the 14th. Or possibly the 15th.
No one seems to know, despite an order by Gov. Joe Manchin tasking the state with creating a comprehensive statewide report on fatal ATV crashes. The lack of such information, some experts say, is cloaking the severity of the state’s ATV safety problem."
5 comments:
Unless some "journalist" decides to look at what the situation is in other heavily rural states or areas re ATVs and compares them to WV, there will never be any basis for proposing serious changes in the ATV death and injury situation in WV. If there is any policy change that will reduce the WV rate, it will be found in some other similar state. If no other similar state or area can be found that has a much lesser rate of imjuries, taking use, etc. into consideration, then there probably isn't anything that can be done. The current situation is just like the overweight coal truck "scare," basically a lot of blather that the news media plays along with, even enjoys. If it bleeds, it leads -- and sells papers. It may be that the damn things are just dangerous, and no one has the balls to keep people, especially kids, off them. Meanwhile, the press, as previously noted, is a complete joke on this issue.
It's stupid people doing stupid things!!! That's why we have ATV deaths and that's why their going up. You can make all laws you want, but there are plenty of idiots out there that will flaunt them & die.
Both the previous comments are bizarrely cynical and defeatist. You could make those same arguments about murder---stupid people do it, why try to stop it? The answer is that we try to stop it to save lives, and to give people good, safe standards to live with. The rule of law is not based on the failures of man, but the aspirations of a civil society. If we aspire for there to be fewer ATV deaths and fewer accidents, then we need to start being serious about safety laws and prevention in West Virginia.
"Unless some "journalist" decides to look at what the situation is in other heavily rural states or areas re ATVs and compares them to WV"
Actually, the story has figures from all over the country. West Virginia has the second-highest ATV death rate, behind Kentucky.
In the first post, I had in mind (and thought I at least implied, but apparently not) that the issue to be explored and publicized by someone -- likely not any government official or politician -- is how ATVs are regulated in other states, and whether some such other type of regulation can be shown to account for a reduced rate of injury, taking into account all the other factors. The skimpy figures on other states mentioned in the article don't seem very clear or compelling to me, and there are very many rural states that are not mentioned. The larger point is that the article's suggestion that that there isn't much real enthusiasm for knowing the scope of the problem in WV, or what might actually reduce it, is also supported by a lack of public circulation of serious evidence-based research upon which to base a public policy. I imagine that research does exist by someone somewhere. I also have a strong suspicion that research shows that the damn things are dangerous, period. At 10 MPH, not so dangerous -- at 35 MPH plus, which is the rate they can go and do go by my house, quite dangerous. It's really a design defect.
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