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ATV SAFETY
SIMULATOR MAKES ITS DEBUT IN WYOMING
While sitting on the
machine kids are lead through the complexities and risks of
riding ATVs by using hydraulics to make the ATV seem to
climb steep hills, turn sharp corners, and go back down the
hill, all without ever leaving the platform or starting the
engine!
Chris McNeil has been working hard as Wyoming's Trails and Safety
Education
Coordinator, and this year he decided to do something to try
to change the
 picture
for the better. McNeil invented and built an "ATV safety
simulator" and is using it to give youth a head start in ATV
safety. In the past three weeks alone 1,500 kids have
learned to ride an ATV using the simulator.
"I don't know how I taught an ATV safety course in the past without
the simulator," McNeil said. He uses the simulator in three
critical lessons in his 17-lesson ATV course on safety and
ethics. "I lead a youth outreach program for kids and their
parents in Wyoming," McNeil said. "Almost half of the
average annual 24 ATV-related deaths in the state are people
under 16 years old."
The ATV safety simulator is a Honda 250 four-wheeler rigged to a
complex hydraulic
system in a moveable platform. Kids sit on the machine, and
McNeil leads
them through the complexities and risks of riding ATVs by
using the
hydraulics to make the ATV seem to climb steep hills, turn
sharp corners,
and go back down the hill, all without ever leaving the
platform or
starting the engine.
Riders learn to stand up and lean forward going up hill, to lean
into the
slope when turning on a hill, and to feel the limits of the
machine.
McNeil said he has been taking school children through the
course 25 to 30
at a time for the past three weeks. "The response has been
overwhelming,"
he said.
West Virginia and other states and the ATV Safety Institute are
already
expressing an interest in the machine and in the interactive
trailer that
accompanies it. Equipped with computer games and written
materials
(including a complete set of NOHVCC Adventure Trail
posters), McNeil
uses the trailer as his command center and office away from
home, and he
spends more time with the ATV safety simulator and the
command trailer than
he does at home in these last hectic weeks of the school
year.
McNeil said he has already been back to areas where kids took the
class a
few weeks ago. "A fourth grade class at Afton saw me again
the other day
and came up to me and they knew exactly what to do," he
said. "When they
finish with the simulator they remember everything."
"I feel everybody needs to learn to ride these machines in a
protected situation
where they can really get the hang of it," McNeil said. Over
850,000 ATVs
were sold in the United States last year and there were over
800 fatalities
in ATV related accidents according to the Consumer Products
Safety
Commission.
For more information on the simulator, contact Chris
McNeil, Wyoming Trail Safety & Education Coordinator at
(307) 335-8747 or
cmcnei@state.wy.us
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