JACKSON - With thousands of all-terrain vehicles sold in Mississippi each year, some ATV dealers say lawmakers are overlooking a chance to capitalize on a booming market by failing to require safety courses that could save lives.
Others, however, say voluntary safety courses are available and the state shouldn't force people to take classes.
North Jackson Honda/Yamaha owner Leland Speed, nephew of the head of the Mississippi Development Authority who shares his name, estimates the off-road vehicle market generates nearly $500 million annually in Mississippi.
Speed said he has unsuccessfully lobbied lawmakers to mandate safety courses. He said ATV manufacturers pay $100 per customer toward safety classes, but most people don't take advantage of the offer.
Dan McLemore, owner of Lake Hill Motorsports in Corinth, opposes state-mandated safety courses. He said manufacturers' willingness to pay a consumer's riding course is sufficient.
"To shove it down a guy's throat - no," said McLemore, whose business sells 7,500 ATVs a year.
Speed said lawmakers are "missing the boat."
"What I hear from this state is: 'It's real tragedy that three girls could get killed on an ATV,"' he said. "It's a real tragedy when we have more deaths every single year associated with ATVs because of the lack of educational training."
Speed referred to a 2002 accident in Rankin County that killed two 14-year-old girls and a 12-year-old girl when their four-wheeler collided with a car on a rural public road.
McLemore said dealers "go through great lengths" to educate their costumers and make them aware of the free safety classes.
Terry Foxx, sales manager at Cycle Shack in Picayune, said he would support mandatory safety classes.
Foxx said some ATV accidents go unreported while others generate headlines. Casey Tynes, the 24-year-old brother-in-law of like Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, died in an ATV accident on Favre's property near his home in Oak Grove in early October.
Ken Giles, spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said the commission advocates that every ATV rider take a training course.
"There are skills you have to learn," Giles said. "You can't just jump on them and go."
Nationwide, more than 4,500 people died on ATVs between 1982 and 2002; 143 of those deaths were in Mississippi, according to the most recent information available from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
ATV injuries that required emergency room treatment jumped 116 percent nationwide, from 54,700 in 1997 to 118,000 in 2003, according to the commission.
Speed said the state is missing out on economic opportunities by not requiring safety classes.
"We should be supporting the people who have bought these products and give them access to some woods for them to be able to ride, burn gas and create more tax dollars," he said. "What I'm proposing is the fact that we're going to educate them and collect money from all of them."
McLemore said mandatory safety classes could actually cost the state money to oversee the courses and create a new burden on Mississippi's ailing economy.
Speed argues that the state could collect fees from ATV manufacturers, charge registration fees from consumers and apply for federal grants to build ATV trails on public lands. He said building public trails would keep people off public roads and other dangerous riding areas.
Speed said the state could generate money by charging a minimal fee - perhaps $5 on each of the nearly 26,000 ATVs sold each year in Mississippi - and use the money to improve parks and other public lands.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said such a program "potentially could fund itself - potentially."
"The money issue aside, we're most concerned with the safety," he said. "If that's something the Legislature feels we should do, then we'll take the ball and run."
Speed said that during a meeting with several lawmakers a few years back, it was estimated that Mississippi would need 3,600 miles of public trails to accommodate ATV users.
Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks spokesman Jim Walker said the state's only public designated area for ATV joy-riding is the 35-mile trail at Trace State Park near Tupelo.
Walker said ATVs can be used for hunting and fishing on other state lands but only on main trails and not for joy-riding.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
