The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2000 issued a policy statement recommending that all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) be used only by those over the age of 16, that they be restricted to off-road use only, and that no passengers be allowed to ride on them with the driver. Some states have also passed laws as a result of the AAP’s policy recommendations, but just how successful have we been in reducing the number of ATV injuries in children in this country? Garay et al. (10.1542/peds.2017-0945) have chosen to look into answering this question by analyzing the Pennsylvania state trauma database for children ages 0-16 who experienced a reported ATV injury from 2004-2014. Close to 2000 pediatric patients were included in their database who met criteria for having experienced an ATV injury.
The good news is that there was a 13.4% decrease in the mean injury incidence in comparing the first five years with the last six. The bad news is that serious injuries and fatalities continue to occur throughout the period studied with long bone fractures being quite common as to what the injuries are that can occur in an ATV accident. So what else can we do to reduce the injury rate further? Perhaps step one is to ask if a family owns or uses an ATV if you live in an environment where one might be used. If you don’t, this article and its findings should prompt you to do so, and if you do, you might consider seeing what your state laws are to reduce the incidence of ATV injuries in children and young teens even more. While this is only one state’s story, it is a troubling one that we think is occurring elsewhere in the country—and hopefully this study will trailblaze the way for all of us to do more to prevent ATV injuries from occurring.
