ATV SAFETY STANDARDS:

ATV manufacturers in the United States, who for decades resisted federal safety regulations on their vehicles, are now embracing them as foreign companies try to crack the U.S. market. Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Mark Dayton, D-Minn., recently introduced legislation that would for the first time regulate all ATVs sold in the U.S. It would make mandatory in law safety standards that manufacturers like Minnesota’s Polaris and Arctic Cat Inc. meet voluntarily, but that foreign ATV makers do not.

Coleman, chief sponsor of the legislation, said it’s important that Arctic Cat and Polaris are “not tagged with the sins of faulty workmanship and poor standards” of others in the industry. Dayton said the legislation is a “trifecta” of safety, fairness and benefits for Minnesota’s economy. Medina-based Polaris employs 2,200, while 1,500 people work at Thief River Falls-based Arctic Cat.

Critics of the legislation contend it’s an effort to push an emerging import industry that sells less expensive vehicles out of the market, while the manufacturers insist it’s about safety.

As ATV sales have risen in recent years, so have the numbers of injuries and deaths associated with the vehicles.

An average of about 500 people a year died in each of the past five years riding ATVs, more than a quarter age 15 or younger. In Minnesota, 43 ATV deaths were reported between 2002 and 2004, and 178 since 1982. It’s not known how many of those involved imports.

Imports come from China, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy. Early last month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said it would explore voluntary safety standards and possibly make them mandatory. The Coleman-Dayton bill would, in effect, speed up the process.