What kind of parents allow a 4-year old to drive an ATV unattended?
 

Searchers find body of boy, 4

Martinez said the boy was riding a small ATV with a 50- cubic-centimeter engine on the family's private property and that no laws prevented him from operating a vehicle.

Cooke said it was not unusual for families on farmland to allow small children to operate ATVs.

Granted he should have had supervision but if you haven't grown up in a rural farming area this seems more shocking, at 4 I've seen kids ride dirt bikes for hours with no one paying attention and they didn't end up dead.

blame the ATV company!!!!! not the parents!!!!

5 and 6 year olds plow fields in some areas. Its not uncommon in those areas. I don't condone it myself but it is a way of life many don't understand.

bwahahaha...atv's don't kill people...people kill people...I am an ATV rights activist!!!


how the fuck are ya Fletch?

im cool. about to get my nearly naked ass dressed and go buy me a couple office chairs for the laboratory.

Just because it is not illegal doesn't excuse it.

As far as the "rural farming area" BS, let's just toss those 4-year olds a gun and send them out to the woods alone to target practice :disgust

If you've never lived in a rural community...you'd never really get it. Things are different out in the country. Kids grow up faster and are more responsible at a younger age just due to living the way they do. It's not all touchy feely bs inner city crybaby shit. These kids grow up toting a shotgun into the woods with dad or carrying 5 gallon buckets of horse shit from the stalls...not having mommy and daddy baby them because Dr.Phil said it was a good thing. They grow up working for a living. A 4 year old on a 50cc ATV in a rural community unattended doesn't surprise me at all...hell I was born and bred in the briar patch...

And riding an ATV and going into the woods with a loaded rifle are two TOTALLY different things...sad I have to point that out but they are.

heh 50cc atv? that must be tiny.

I rode ATV's when i was young


I once rode a trike, into a hedge..... my parents found it hilarious

now why won't I be surprised if they end up sueing them
cause it's not written specifically anywhere that they should surpervise children or not let them ride it

which I am pretty sure they'd win cause of that :disgust

My daughter has grown up on 4-wheelers and motorcycles. Had one of each before she was born (thanks to her dad who is a motorcycle freak). She started riding them alone when she was about 3. She is 11 now, and has NEVER ridden them unsupervised. I don't care about "rural" bullshit. A 4 year old should not be left unsupervised playing in the yard, much less DRIVIN A MOTOR VEHICLE. :mad:

Damn we have kids riding atv's all over the place here. They grab their fishing pool and head out. Like it was pointed out earlier kids in small rural communities have a totally different life style than pampered city kids. Its nothing to go across the street to the lake and see 10-20 kids 4-10 years old fishing on the peir with their bikes/motorcycles/atvs all lined up.

damn crazy to let a 4 year old operate an atv..

I don't exactly live in a metro :winkwink: My summers growing up were spent in a place that could not have been more country.A 4-year old is not grown up nor responsible no matter where he is raised. This kid drove an ATV into a lake, having left the house at nearly dark alone. The parents are 100% responsible for his death.
Key words being with dad. I happen to know many instances of children in the country owning and using guns without parental supervision but I don't know of any instances where parents allowed it for a 4-year old. I also know kids that have driven various vehicles on their property/dirt roads, but don't know of any instances of 4-year olds being allowed to do it unattended. Again, a 4-year old is not grown up nor responsible enough to fend on his own no matter where he is raised.
I've known lots of "country people". None of them are stupid enough to have let a 4-year old go off driving unattended out of eyesight, especially going on dark, maybe you knew some really retarded ones :Oh crap .

:thumbsup

At least they are not alone and would have a chance if something happened to them.

When you live in rural areas or on farms life is just different. I know this will be a damn hard thing to grasp for many though. Fact is you do leave children unsupervised, children also ride ATV's without mommy or daddy watching them all the time. Children also do have guns. Hell it is even not to uncommon to find a kid 10-13 driving the pickup truck around the farm.
Children do have accidents on farms, they do get killed or mangled and every so often one falls into the combine as well.
If you did not grow up this way or live around it, it will seem alien to you. For those of us who did, its just normal life.

Of course they do. At some point, you have to quit following them around, educate them, train them on those vehicles, and hope to God they will be ok.

My 13 year old has done this...somewhat supervised. But we are not talking about 13 year old children, we are talking about a 4 year old child!

Some in this thread seem to want to ignore this part of the story :(

No we get it he was four.
Life is still different on farms and rural areas.
People die and children die supervised or not shit still happens.

Perhaps you missed my post above where I said I have been around very rural life (every summer for years until my uncle died when I was in HS). So what's the cut-off age for allowing a child to ride off on an ATV completely alone in the dark while the parents are up in the house? 3? 2? As soon as they can turn the throttle? :disgust

Noone's ignoring any part of any story. Some kids are more mature at 4 than others. Hell, my daughter is 3 and can write already and clean her own room and other things that you wouldn't imagine a 3 year old doing, while my nephew who is 4 can barely string cohesive sentences together. I didn't say that I agree with parents allowing a 4 year old to ride an ATV, I said that life in a rural setting is different and kids are EXPECTED to mature faster and take on more responsibility. That kid had probably ridden that ATV 100 times and things were always fine. Is it tragic? Sure. Could it have been avoided? Yes. Should someone have been with the kid? Absolutely. But you're missing my point entirely. Parents and people in general in a setting such as that probably didn't see ANY problem with what the kid was doing because it's common place for very young children to be quite independent. Quit twisting my words and read them...

that sucks

may be a case where its best not to judge right away

Do you have children? Would you really allow your 4-year old to end up in the situation that this one did? Would your attitude then really be "shit happens"?:eek7

I was 7 yo the first time I flipped a vehicle. It was an odyssey :)

my daughter had an atv when she was 3...

of course it ran on batteries, had plastic tires, and went 2mph.

she's 5 now.. and rides on my atv (considerably larger) but only with me doing the actual driving.

Ok so you did yet it was a general statement and not directed at you personally.
There should be no cut off age, each situation based on each child. Some can handle things earlier than others, and some will be named Sobe and try to sell content while remaining in a helmet their entire life.
I do like how suddenly though 7pm became "dark" though because I really remember it as daylight still.

WTF, they should ban that shit :mad:

Is she allowed to wander off away from the house alone?
Whole point of my thread.
I bet they see a problem with it today, and their other children won't be allowed to do the same thing. :(

Up until a few years ago, our life was ranching and raising horses in the most rural of areas. We raise 3 children on ranches...NONE of them rode an ATV unsupervised or carried a gun. Period. Maybe you should re-phrase the statement about rural areas to redneck areas. Redneck kids grow up like some of you mentioned with the mentality of parents who were inbred.

The only people that I've seen or known that let there kids do whatever they want justs because it's not against the law are ignorant fucktards that would be considered rednecks by any standards....

Bet she wasn't allowed to drive it away from the house alone...

Do I have children, no. Although I did raise my siblings since my parents were gone from 5am until 9pm working to keep us with food and shelter.
Would I allow a 4yr old to end up in a simuliar situation, I suppose I could. I have left my 4yr old brother doing some things that generally most would only allow supervised before (when he was that age of course) and nothing bad happened, then again I was watching my other brother who was 5 ride his bike in the drive way, he was hit by a car. So yes shit happens.

BINGO! And that is the answer to the question asked in my subject line.

Why should they?

You know, it really bothers me that even SOME of the people here say "well, you just don't know how life is in rural areas, everyone does it". Everyone should be outraged that these parents let their little tiny child ride an ATV, no matter what the size of the motor. THE PARENTS caused his death and should be charged with neglect at the very least.

That happened about 20 minutes away from my house. Sad....

I'm a redneck. :Oh crap

it's great!