ATV Safety Courses - Take a Class with Your Kid!

These days almost all ATVs come with a voucher for a free ATV Safety Institute (ASI) safety course. Most adults don't use it. Granted, in most cases this is because most adults are not first-time buyers. Here's an idea for you: Next time you buy a new machine (800,000 people do it every year), take a class with your kid. Why not? It's free! And in many states, it's mandatory for the kiddies if they're going to ride on public land. Far from just participating in a remedial education, you're now enhancing your child's ATV training, not just watching from the bleachers. Besides, you might even pick up a new tip to improve your own riding skill.

We took our guinea pigs, Katie Rossiter and her mom, Helen, to a course in Irvine, California, taught by the ASI. In the shadow of Kawasaki's U.S. headquarters there is a vacant lot that Kawi donated for the purpose of training ATV riders. There's a simple trail around the perimeter, as well as a small hill on which to practice angled maneuvers. It's good enough to teach some basic skills.

Test Mom Helen thought the experience of taking a class together maximized what both she and Katie got out of it. She got to see Katie's initial riding tendencies firsthand from the seat of the machine in front of or behind her. She found quickly that her fearless daughter's inclinations differ greatly from her own. In fact, one time Katie ran right up the back of her mom's Bombardier Outlander on her Kawasaki KFX50 and landed on her butt ... all due to a moment of indecision about the brakes and maybe letting her attention wander.

Katie, for her part, liked taking a class with a grown-up rather than being stuck in some "kids' thing" and paid a bit more attention than she might have otherwise. She knew this was serious business--and serious fun!

A challenge for Katie, or anybody on a very small machine, is seeing the trails and where to go, as she doesn't have much perspective from so close to the ground. Mom helped her here, too, as she gave her a big target to follow around.

Helen, a veteran of a few riding trips and now her first ASI safety course, enjoyed the refresher course, as all teachers stress different parts of the curricula, and was able to touch up on her side-hilling and other angled techniques. Helen also liked working on this stuff with Katie, as she quickly found her aggressive grommet could outrun her in technical situations (the throttle-limiter on the KFX had fallen out).

One last point is that not all of the instructors teaching the child or family course are going to be good with every kid. Our teacher, Jun Villegas, was great, but don't take that for granted. If your teacher isn't getting through to your child, feel free to help out with follow-up questions and other tips to keep your child engaged and learning; a safe, educated child is statistically far less likely to hurt him- or herself on the trail.