4 year old riding an ATV?
 

This has been in the news here in Colorado:


Searchers Look For Missing Weld County Boy

Body Of Missing 4-Year-Old Found
I've got problems with this incident on a lot of levels, most specifically the quote "Martinez has said it is not unusual for such young children to drive ATVs in a rural, agricultural community.". At the age of 4, my daughters had a hard time controlling a big wheel, let alone a ATV with a gasoline engine. The fact that a 4 year old is anywhere unsupervised seems insane to me, as well. This has been on the news out here and the attitude has been that this is how things are in rural areas. I've lived in the sticks all of my life and it just seems really wrong to me.

Opinions?

This is a tragedy that didn't have to happen. What kind of moronic parent leaves a 4 year old unsupervised, especially when on a gasoline powered vehicle. He'd 4, he doesn't have the experience yet to know what's good judgement what's not - that is what parents are for.

/me shakes head at the stupidity of some people...

ATV comes in all kind of different size. The kid could've been driving one of those kid-size ATV. The article doesn't say but that's one of the possible reason why a 4 years old kid is riding a ATV.

If it was a full size one, it's impossible for the kid to actually reach both the peddle and the handlebar (Unless it was a gigantic kid)

Other news articles list it as a kid sized 50cc ATV.


I'm not sure why that would make a difference.

Another reason for governments to rollback on their decisison to let companies make kid size vehicles.

Another reason why governments should license parents

Even if it was the size of a big wheel, a parent would let a child outside, out of their line of vision for long enough for the kid to fully disappear and have a search party called in?

Even if it is in the country - it seems pretty irresponsible of a parent to leave the kid unattended for so long

When Amanda was 4 we bought her one of those little motorized jeep thingys, I cant tell you how many times I got banged on the knees getting between her and the back end of my car...NO WAY IN HELL....let me repeat NO WAY IN HELL would she have been riding that unsupervised for any amount of time. If I had to go to the bathroom she was made to get off of it and come with me.

those parents should be charged with neglect.

My cousin got one of those things for his 7th birthday. I shook my head in disbelief. He lives in a rural area as well, and it's pretty common for young kids to have them there. My son is coming up on his fourth birthday and is having difficulty with his tricycle....I just don't understand the reasoning behind this.

Yeah, my 4 year old sister has a power wheel thing and she still has a hard time understanding that turning the steering wheel makes the jeep move at all. An ATV? This child better have been seriously advanced or something else this is pure idiotic parenting.

-Lasereth

At least something has to be said in this being a rural area. I live in a rural-ish area of Colorad, and my parents had 6-20 acres in our "backyard." They couldn't be expected to watch us 24/7, and they couldn't be expected to follow us everywhere we went. Certainly at 4 years old.. they would've been watching us.. but at 6 or 7? Me and my sister were playing "story" where I was the knight and she the princess.. galloping all over the property by ourselves. An accident could have happened, and I wouldn't have chalked it up to bad parenting. I think they trusted us to be somewhat responsible. Likewise, I was riding my bicycle down our dirt road at a pretty young age -- it's hard to say how responsible both the child and the parents were. The parents might've been unfortuntely lulled into believing their child was more responsible than he was.

However, it's also hard for me to see letting a 4 year old, even a 10 year old.. sit on something thats got red-hot tailpipes, an explosive liquid, and toxic fumes. That's something you gotta be like .. 16 for. :)

Motocross events have age 5-7 dirtbike events, and there's a thing called "Jr. Dragster" (yes, kids with nitromethane powered dragsters,) so it doesn't surprise me that parents buy this stuff for their kids. I'd wait until they were 10 or 12, but that's just me (don't start with the "you don't have kids" stuff because I ignore anything like that.)

I think 4 year olds have a hard enough time walking and running, Let alone driving a motorized vehicle around. I think you need to be at least a teenager to drive anyting that moves without you powering it.

It's just a shame that a child is dead because he had idiots for parents! 4 year old children have no buisiness on anything like that. My son won't have a go-cart, 4 wheeler, dirt bike or anything like that probably until he's a teenager. But it really is such a sad story.