I will tell you as an ER doc, I don't understand the blind trust people put in their 10-15 year olds who can not legally or never have driven on a paved road where there are very little obstacles to driving something with way less safety features on terrain that could be hiding any number of dangers. These modern UTVs are fast and cumbersome. They're not dune buggies but teenagers drive them like they're in the Baja 500.
I get the desire to let your kid do it because I grew up where we were out on the four wheelers all the time and unsupervised from 10 on. I am very lucky I wasn't hurt more.
I get it that that's how we were raised, but once a year at least I'm dealing with a dead or maimed teenager.
And this post isn't meant to be disrespectful to any of you who have had issues in the past with ATV/UTV accidents, but it is a warning to those who haven't yet dealt with this. Teach your kids to drive. And drive well. Make sure they understand the limits of what the machine they're driving can do. Make sure they realize the consequences for their bad decisions. Teach them to say no to letting somebody drive who doesn't know what they're doing no matter how much it costs them socially. Don't be afraid to put a governor on your machine.
It takes one hole, one drop off, one obstacle they didn't think was there, one second of not paying attention, to forever change or end the life of somebody.
