Honda Faces Meeting Over All-Terrain Vehicle Deaths
Alarmed by a rising number of injuries and deaths, attorneys general in 23 states Monday asked the nation’s largest manufacturer of all-terrain vehicles to meet with them to discuss ways of making their machines safer and avoiding possible legal action.
Texas Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox said he and the other top law enforcement officials, including California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, invited executives from Gardena-based American Honda Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. Ltd., to discuss the matter at a closed-door meeting Nov. 16 in Los Angeles. The request was made in a letter to Honda under the auspices of the National Assn. of Attorneys General.
“These vehicles are rolling death machines,” said Mattox at a press conference in Austin, Tex. “There have been nearly 800 deaths and 300,000 injuries related to these machines since 1982.”
Serious Injuries
In what remains a largely unregulated pastime, all-terrain vehicles have been linked to an average of 20 deaths and 7,000 serious injuries each month nationwide in the last two years, according to a federal safety agency. About half the victims are under 16.
A spokesman for American Honda, which controls about 65% of the all-terrain-vehicle market in the Unites States, said, “Our plans are to attend the meeting.
“We want to make certain they understand the American Honda side of the story,” said William Willen, spokesman for the company. “These are not defective machines.”
Willen added that improved safety training programs have resulted in a decline over the last 2 1/2 years in the injury rate related to the use of all-terrain vehicles.
“There was a 14% decline in the first six months of 1987 compared with the same period in 1986,” he said.
Sharply Criticized
Mattox and California law enforcement officials, however, said there is more to be done, and they sharply criticized the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the U.S. Justice Department for failing to take action on the problem.
“The federal government has had the information and the authority to mandate safety changes on these vehicles but has done nothing,” Mattox said. “It is another example of state attorneys general teaming up to do what the Feds should have done but did not.”
In January, after reviewing numerous complaints from safety agencies, physicians, law enforcement officials and accident victims across the nation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission requested assistance from the Justice Department in initiating legal action that could force manufacturers to refund the cost of machines that were voluntarily returned by consumers.
Such a move could cost the four major manufacturers--Honda, U.S. Suzuki Motor Corp., Yamaha Motor Corp. and Kawasaki Motors Corp.--up to $1 billion, said a commissioner of the state Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission.
In April, a spokesman for the Justice Department said a decision on the commission’s request was “weeks away.” But on Monday, the request was still under consideration.
“It is not helpful, and (it is) unfair to criticize us when they do not have the slightest idea of what we are doing,” said Robert Cynkar, spokesman for the Justice Department. “The case was not sent to us ready to go to court by a long shot. . . . For the last several months, we have been doing a legal analysis . . . of this very complex case.”
Cynkar declined to say when or if the case would be reach federal court.
Meanwhile, James V. Lacy, general counsel for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, argued that the attorneys general have not done enough to regulate the use of all-terrain vehicles in their own states.
“Writing letters to manufacturers is fine and good, but they have the power in their own states to require that riders wear helmets, have proper training and not ride with passengers or while intoxicated,” Lacy said.
The comment drew a sharp response from Herschel Elkins, a California senior assistant attorney general based in Los Angeles.
“That’s nonsense,” Elkins said.
He said that delays by federal authorities investigating the all-terrain-vehicle problems “have been interminable” and that action should have been taken by now.
‘Possible Ban, Recall’
Elkins said the meeting with Honda officials will last two days or more and that issues discussed will include “a possible ban or recall, changes in design, responsibilities of manufacturers, warning labels . . . and the possibility of bringing our own legal action.”
The attorneys general action came five days after a senior managing director of Honda Motor Co. wept on a witness stand when an attorney gave him a list containing 789 names of victims who have died in accidents involving all-terrain vehicles like those built by his company.
Tetsuo Chino was the first top Honda official to testify in a personal injury lawsuit involving the company’s all-terrain vehicles. The case, which is being tried in San Diego Superior Court, stems from a lawsuit filed by parents of a 14-year-old boy who was severely injured five years ago when he fell off a Honda ATC 110 three-wheel vehicle that was being driven by his 8-year-old friend.
The Product Safety Commission and other safety groups have asserted that riders of three- and four-wheel all-terrain vehicles can lose control and even flip their machines when they strike ruts in roads, rocks or ditches. Many injuries result when inexperienced riders instinctively put their feet on the ground in an attempt to stop or turn, they say. In such cases, the rear wheel is likely to run up the back of the leg, flipping the vehicle and throwing off the rider.
“Clearly, this is a very complex issue and resolution takes time,’ said product safety Commissioner Anne Graham on Monday. “Nonetheless, I believe the CPSC could have and should have moved more quickly to inform the public and provide reasonable recourse.”
