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concurred in the program that I outlined earlier . So I don ' t think we have been slow . I think we have moved forward .

What I would like , if I may , is to have Mr . Marchica just give you a brief analysis of what we have done in the engineering area .

Mr . MARCHICA . Mr . Chairman , if I may ? Basically what we have done is a paper analysis of the all - terrain vehicle . We have looked at it to see the various ways that it can be handled . We have done a preliminary analysis based on the indepth investigations that we have conducted . We are using this information to assist us in plan ning our engineering work .

In addition , we have gone and ridden three - wheel and four - wheel all - terrain vehicles to try and get an idea of how we should evalu ate them . What we intend to do is to obtain all - terrain vehicles , both three - and four - wheelers , and do static tests on them , as well as static tests with a rider on them .

Mr . BARNARD . My question , though , is why has and I am not trying to be critical , I am just trying - because I entered into these things with a nonprejudiced , unbiased attitude , and I am going to conduct it the rest of the way .

But you don ' t think there is enough , there hasn ' t been enough information to warrant doing all of this before ?

Mr . TERRENCE SCANLON . Well , engineering studies weren ' t avail able to tell us whether there was a stability problem .

Mr . BARNARD . But because of the lack of money you couldn ' t con duct them yourself ?

Mr . TERRENCE SCANLON . I would disagree with Commissioner Statler on that . What we do is select priorities , as he has told you . In the case of ATV ' s , what we did was take people , staff months , and contract dollars off of other nonpriority projects and allocated them to the ATV question .

Mr . BARNARD . But this was only done recently ? Mr . STATLER . Yes . Your point , Mr . Chairman , is why wasn ' t this done 1 or 2 years ago . The simple answer is that we didn ' t have the staff to detect those emerging trends 1 or 2 years ago . We first became more acutely aware of this problem last July , a year ago July . We then met with the industry in October and we had much more information then . But , we still didn ' t have the money or the staff to expend on something that we saw was emerging , that is we knew we needed to do something about it , but we were trying to get a better grasp of just how serious a problem it is . And we are still trying .

Mr . TERRENCE SCANLON . If I may add one thing . Beginning a year ago , or over a year ago , Mr . Chairman , our field staff conduct ed some 169 indepth investigations . Those were IDI ' s performed at the site or near the site of an accident or a death associated with an ATV . Those things take considerable amounts of time . We now have that data and it is being analyzed .

Mr . BARNARD . How long do you think it will be before you will have sufficient information to make a decision ?

Mr . TERRENCE SCANLON . A decision on what , Mr . Chairman ? Mr . BARNARD . As to what you are going to do about it , if any thing .