ATV Rhino Accidents
San Antonio ATV Rhino Accident Lawyers – (210) 298-6666 - (800) 519-2800
All terrain vehicles (ATVs) are often used for recreational purposes. Countless people have fun while driving ATVs, and more times than not this fun is also safe. However, when a product is defective or manufactured improperly, safety is often abandoned. The design flaw of Yamaha Rhinos poses the risk of serious injury, and the defective design attorneys at Cichowski & Gonzalez will draw on their vast experience and know-how to hold those responsible for this flaw completely accountable.
While safety should be a vital condition of the design of any ATV, it is not always taken into complete consideration. Or, in the case of the Yamaha Rhino, safety standards were essentially circumvented by creating a new classification of vehicle, and thus abandoning safety warnings that all other classifications that came before it were held to. The Consumer Product Safety Commission places Yamaha Rhinos into its “emerging hazard” category, a niche group containing products that find ways around safety regulations because manufacturers classify them as something new to avoid safety standards put forth by existing items that, though labeled as something different, and extremely similar to the new classification of product in question.
Yamaha Rhino’s are classified as Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles (ROVs) or Utility Terrain Vehicles (UTVs). These classifications diverge from the traditional ATV label, and thus do not need to be held to the same safety standards as a result. Yamaha Rhinos have a high center of gravity, and therefore have a high propensity for rollover accidents. To complicate matters, most Yamaha Rhinos do not have side doors either, making their drivers even less protected then they could be.
In a September 2006 letter from Yamaha, a warning is made about potential Rhino danger:
"...If you are in a situation where the vehicle is tipping over, do not put your arm or leg outside the vehicle to try to stop it. You could be severely injured. You could suffer a crushed hand, arm, leg, or foot, if part of your body is caught underneath the vehicle. You must keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle until it has stopped moving..."
More than 30 people have died and hundreds of others have been injured in Rhino accidents. Because Rhinos can be operated by anyone (the possession of a valid license is not required to drive them), people of all ages, particularly adolescents and teenagers, are allowed behind the wheel. Lack of proper driving experience can only exasperate the rollover issues, particularly since younger drivers of Yamaha Rhinos do not have the know-how of preventing rolling over accidents and are not aware of the measures that can be taken to counteract vehicle roll over.
At Cichowski & Gonzalez, our knowledgeable lawyers are experienced handling cases involving vehicle design defects. If you or a loved one has been seriously injured in a Rhino accident as a result of its faulty design, please don’t hesitate to call our attorneys for a free consultation. We will hold the guilty accountable for their actions, and will get you the compensation you deserve to help you recover from the accident and regain some semblance of the way your life used to be.