Each year,
all-terrain vehicle
accidents send about 136,000 riders to emergency rooms and kill 800 people.
About a third of fatal crashes start with the ATV overturning.
There
are more than 7 million ATVs in use, and manufacturers sell just less than a
million more every year. The newest ATVs are heavier and faster than ever. So why can't we make them
safer?
The
Oregonian found:
The final weekend in March dawned gray and damp across much of the
country -- but eager riders pulled out their all-terrain vehicles anyway and
hit the springtime trails.
Soon the ambulances rolled, too.
In North Carolina, an ATV overturned and
crushed an 18-year-old woman to death. A collision with a truck killed two ATV
riders in Centertown, Ky. Two girls, ages 4 and 7, died in separate ATV wrecks in eastern Texas. And two infants -- a
14-month-old in South Carolina and an 8-month-old in Perris, Calif. -- died in two more ATV
crashes.
In Oregon that weekend, Debby Schubert, 45, and Donnie
Moody, 31, became the state's first ATV fatalities this year when their machine
tumbled into a dry canal east of Redmond.
Nine dead, including four children. Another bloody weekend in ATV
country, where the quest for thrills and family fun can turn to grief in one
terrifying moment.
Nearly 20 years ago, the federal government declared ATVs an
"imminent hazard" and forced manufacturers to drop unstable
three-wheel models in favor of the four-wheelers sold today. Regulators also
compelled the ATV industry to adopt safety warnings and offer rider training to
stem the accidents.
Since then, federal officials have done little more than tally the
dead, and the failure of their approach can be seen in the grim body counts
from Oregon to West Virginia.
The rate of injuries per ATV has barely budged from where it stood
in the years after the government acted in 1988. Though death rates initially
plummeted as three-wheelers disappeared, there's been scant improvement since.
How stable are ATVs?
See
this graphic.
Stroke
Study: State
by State
American Indians and native
Alaskans have the highest prevalence of stroke in America
according to a new study from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. The study is the first ever to try to identify stroke rates state
by state.
The study says:
Stroke is the third
most common cause of death in the United States. Stroke also results in substantial
health-care expenditures; the mean lifetime cost resulting from an ischemic
stroke is estimated at $140,000 per patient. Nationwide, costs related to stroke are expected to reach
an estimated $62.7 billion in 2007.
According to a summary of the study by Reuters, stroke is a leading cause of disability in
the country. It kills more than 160,000 people each year, behind only heart disease and cancer.
The state with the highest prevalence of stroke was Mississippi with 4.3 percent, and the lowest prevalence was in Connecticut with 1.5 percent. See a state-by-state breakdown here.
Reuters says:
After Mississippi,
the states with the highest prevalence were: Oklahoma
(3.4 percent), Louisiana
(3.3 percent), Alabama
and Nevada
(3.2 percent), Tennessee,
Missouri
and Kentucky
(3.1 percent), Arkansas,
Illinois,
Michigan,
Texas
and West Virginia
(3.0 percent).
After Connecticut,
states with the lowest prevalence were: Colorado
and Minnesota
(1.7 percent), North
Dakota (1.8
percent), Wisconsin
and Wyoming
(1.9 percent), and Arizona,
Maryland,
Massachusetts,
Montana,
New Jersey,
Rhode Island
and Vermont
(2.1 percent).
The highest stroke prevalence was found
in among American Indians and Alaska Natives, at 6 percent. At 1.6 percent,
Asian Americans had the lowest rate.
Prevalence of stroke in blacks (4
percent) was far higher than in whites (2.3 percent). The report said blacks have a much higher prevalence of high blood pressure and diabetes and are less likely to have them treated than whites.
College graduates had
much lower stroke prevalence (1.8 percent) than those who had not completed
high school (4.4 percent).
How
to Retire Early
CNN Money
dedicates considerable resources to helping you understand what it might take
for you to retire comfortably before 65.
I suspect there are lots of people in our craft of journalism contemplating
that these days. The numbers are fairly sobering.
Al's
Morning Multimedia
I want to
be sure you have seen Poynter Online's ongoing project on how and when to
invite reader/user comments to journalism Web sites. We have, so far,
included questions of ethics, story frames and even a survey of newsroom practices.
Still to come are interviews with attorneys, thoughts from our
ethics guru Bob Steele and more. We hope this is useful to you as you think
through how your online site fits into your journalism. This project is still in progress, so let us
know what you think and how else we can help.
Why Your Car's Odometer May Cost You Money
WISH-TV
in Indianapolis found that a surprising number of car odometers are not
accurate. They often say you have driven more miles than you actually have.
There are several problems with that. If
you, for example, lease or rent a car, you could be paying for miles you did
not drive. Companies or government agencies that reimburse for mileage could be
paying more than they should. What could cause this problem? Improper tires are
the biggest culprits. Several of the
cars that WISH tested were more than a mile off in just a 40-mile test drive.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
You forgot two important questions, here, Al: Why on earth...
