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But look at the injuries , gentlemen . From 1980 , the same period , 1980 to 1985 the estimated injuries are going up from 5 , 000 to 6 , 000 to 8 , 600 , to 27 , 000 in 1983 , to 67 , 000 in 1984 . And this dot at the top , that is 120 , 000 that are now projected on the basis of the first 4 months of 1985 . This is an increase of 80 percent over the 1984 injury figures totaling 67 , 000 .

Gentlemen , in my 6 years as a Commissioner at the Consumer Product Safety Commission I have never in my life seen a surge of injuries and deaths associated with any product that we are seeing with this product today .

You ' ve heard the death figures : 17 in 1982 , 51 in 1983 , 68 so far in 1984 . And , I remind you that our figures are woefully incom plete at this time because we depend upon the States for death fig ures . For the first 4 months of 1985 , we know of 24 deaths , but we are not going to get the full figure for those first 4 months for an other year and a half . In other words , what you can expect by the end of this year is something on the order of 120 , 000 additional se rious injuries , serious enough to be reported to hospital emergency rooms and treated there , and perhaps as many as 100 deaths , and perhaps more , mostly to young children .

The figures that we have show that of the 161 deaths we know of 45 percent are to youngsters between the ages of 4 and 16 . That ' s 45 percent to kids under 16 , and fully 24 percent to kids under 12 years of age . That is where the real tragedy lies .

Summing up , over the last 3 years 125 , 000 Americans have been injured in accidents involving ATV ' s , and another 161 killed , so many of the youngsters who didn ' t have the slightest idea what they were undertaking , nor did their parents when they bought these vehicles .

I have gotten a lot of letters , as Representative Craig has , from ATV users . Many of them say ATV ' s don ' t kill people , riders do . But I think what has to be kept in mind in the context of this morning ' s discussion is that ATV ' s are not like motorcycles and they are not like dirt bikes or trail bikes , or even bicycles of any sort , which everyone knows can fall over , can tip over . ATV ' s look like they won ' t . They look stable .

As your very first witness this morning , Mrs . Vance , indicated , it looks so stable . That is why she bought it for her youngster . It looks like a giant tricycle is what she said . And that is why so many parents are buying it and letting their youngsters use it . And so many parents don ' t know that this is a vehicle that can cause mayhem and death .

They are assuming people who participate in stock car races , or surfing , or skiing , or boating , as Representative Craig indicated , they assume a risk that is part of that sport . But most ATV riders , and in the case of young kids and their parents , they have no con ception of that risk . Because the vehicle looks stable , the buyers assume it is . They assume it is safer than the dirt bike or the trail bike , that it won ' t flip over or tip over or roll over , but the facts don ' t bear that out . And that is worth repeating . Clearly not every ATV rider recognizes or willingly assumes or accepts the risk in herent in riding an ATV .

And I ask you , do you think that children of the ages of 5 or 7 or 9 , or even 1 or 12 , that they possibly can understand and accept