I bought my 3rd ATC in 1984.
A brand new 200X. It was great. Rode it a ton, in gravel pits and frozen rivers and lakes.

I got home every morning from 3rd shift.
When the school bus went by, I followed it on the 2 rear wheels...
(I could shift during a wheelie)
Almost a mile.

The kids always went nuts ??

I was involved in a wreck of sorts on one when I was little. Big cousin was driving me around, he let me take control of the throttle, I gassed it hard and the front end went up and dumped us both off the back. 3 wheeler kept going and wrecked in the ditch. He begged me not to tell anyone at the time, so I didn't.

Still don't think they should've been banned.

The ignorance of my youth and freedom my parents gave me were the best thing about growing up .  Would not trade my upbringing for the world.

3 wheelers suck ass, always have.

Did someone say ATC?  


I grew up with a SX and a 200X.  My brother had the R and a 350X

You retards who think they are "death traps" or dangerous, or should have been banned are the same idiots that get hurt playing with a pool noodle.  

The only reason they were banned, was because it was the 80's and parents let their 10-12 y/o kids hop on a 250R and take off around the neighborhood.  Helmets, footwear, and shirts were optional.  
Kids who had no business being on anything with an engine essentially got them banned...

No, an over reaching Nanny state and a bunch of Karen's got them banned.

You know what the first thing my aunt and uncle did after my cousin wrecked? They called an ambulance and not a lawyer. There was a time when people understood risk and just accepted it.

No it wasnt right for the govt to get involved.. My son and I rode a 82 and 83 honda 250r up until the early 2000s. No broken bones or major injuries. Great times

Pretty much.

I always thought that the "danger" of three wheelers was people thinking that just anyone could ride one because you couldn't fall over.  Which led to a lot of idiots who would never get on a motorcycle, hopping on a 3-wheeler, and doing stupid shit.


As others have pointed out, they were mostly on the way out due to 4-wheelers becoming more popular, when they got banned.

No .gov shouldn’t be banning shit like this of course. I had this exact one (among others). So much fun.  Unstable?  Sure but I’ve rolled my quads a shitload of times too.

Still have my 82 Kawasaki KLT 200 and 86 Honda 350X.  

At the time the reports were that the CPSC was threatening to ban them and that enticed the manufacturers to stop making them in favor of 4 wheelers (which were already being made anyway).

Not sure where the 4 wheelers are at, these days, on engine size or vehicle weight.  Or how all that affects performance/agility/handling.

I can say, my 350X is awesome.  Never rolled it over or flipped it over backwards.  One of the guys I rode with did flip his 350X over backwards one day but damn, even I would climb some of the hills he did.

We rode them thousands of miles over the course of the 10 years or so we did a lot of riding.  Some guys put speedometers/odometers on theirs and we figured, after awhile, that our average rides were around 80 miles.

I rode a couple of those early 4 wheelers and didn't really care for them.

That big 350X had a 350 cc single cylinder 4 stroke with four valves in the head and a single big carb.  Torque monster.  Unreal.  A bike that weighs about 330 lbs. with me sitting so far up on the seat my nuts are on the back of the gas tank.  I weighed 265 in those days.  On the first 4 gears (of 6) the front wheel would come off the ground as the clutch bit good.  Tears in your eyes before 4th gear if you didn't have glasses on.  Climb a hill?  Don't drop a gear, or two, just give it more gas.  More than once over the years I had guys ask me why I didn't shift down when the roads/trails went up.  I just told him it had enough torque all I had to do was give it more gas.

If you get a 300 lb. 3 wheeler stuck in the mud you get off, pick the ass end up and move it a foot or so left or right and get back on to ride it out of the mud.  How in the hell to you pick up a 600 plus lb. 4 wheeler to get it out of the mud?

Cool things about 3 wheelers.  Mpg.  Doughnuts.  I found out one time that you can make them "track" through a curve when they're drifting to the outside in the gravel by blipping the throttle to make the  back end break loose momentarily.  When the back tires stop spinning the bike then goes the direction it's pointing for a bit before it starts drifting again (went into a curve way to fast one day and got as close as I ever want to going over the side of the hill at speed.)  Remembered it and used it several time in the years after that.

A four wheeler really is better for pulling a trailer but we did it for a few years (deer and turkey hunting camps) with the KLT 200's.  Never tried to haul a trailer with the 350X.  Didn't buy it for that.

Did I mention the torque?  My brother-in-laws 350X  (yeah, after people rode mine they wanted one, too) died in a mudhole one time we were riding on a rainy day.  I don't think he ever found out why but if he got in water high enough to make contact with the engine case it would just shut off and not restart till he got it out of the water.  I went back around, pulled in front of him and stopped and we hooked up the tow line.  I pulled him on through the bad rutted out section of road and up a hill (600 lbs. of me and my 350X and nearly the same with him and his 350X) and my 350X hardly knew it was pulling twice it's weight in the mud and up the hill.  I'd been impressed (and scared) by my bike before but that time it really left a mark on me about the power that engine had.

I will say, kick starting that 350X when it was new was a bitch.  I finally got the hang of it and got it broke in and I could usually start it on the 2nd kick till the spark plug needed changed.

350X.  Hydraulic disc brakes front/rear.  6 speed manual transmission with a clutch (imagine that).  Around 11" front suspension travel and about 8" rear suspension travel.  low/high beam twin headlights.

Lots of good memories riding 3 wheelers.  Worst hurt any of our group ever got was bruises/brier scratches.  We had about 5 regular riders in the group with more occasional riders.  Not everyone liked loading up lunch/drinks in the rack, tying them down with bungy cords, making sure the gas tank and back up gas cans were full, checking the oil, oiling the chain, checking the tires, firing up the bike and not coming home again for 12 or 14 hrs.  As my brother-in-law used to say, "You ain't lost till you run out of gas.  Until then you're just sight seeing."  Oh, USGS maps can be your friend when you head off some place you've never been before (long before GPS or cell phones).

unbelievably so.

Dumb to ban them. Darwin was robbed.

You and I both!

And at the time more people were seriously injured on riding lawn mowers each year but there was never any talk of banning those.

Wait till they apply that to guns.  Oh, people get injured/killed with guns, let's ban them.

Wait, they're already using that argument.

Old red, white and blue (just the 86's).

Not mine, but just like mine.

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Well, I did add a 6 pack rack to the back for a little igloo cooler and 1 gal. gas can.  And some fender flares on the back wheels so I didn't get a face full of dirt if I looked behind me to see the rooster tails.  And a set of front fender mud flaps when I got tired of the front kicking up rocks/dirt when I was leaned out over the handle bars climbing a steep hill.

One of those things that, when you notice it creeps you out, but by the time you notice it's too late to stop.  You're climbing a hill.  A hill so steep you're standing on the foot pegs, leaning out over the handle bars to the point where you face is out over the front tire and you realize the front tire isn't touching the ground anymore except for every now and then.

I've leaned out over the handle bars far enough to hit that damned kill switch with my thigh.  That's an oh shit moment when the engine shuts off on you on a hill that steep.  Thank goodness for the manual clutch/transmission.  It just bumps a couple times as it dies and the front wheel comes back to earth and it just sits there while you try to get off without making the back tires lose traction and start the bike sliding down the hill with you on it.  I remember leaning to the right one time and wrapping my arm around a skinny tree to hold on while my brother-in-law came up behind me to grab the bike so I wouldn't "lose it" as I climbed off.

Got an ATV that you get dirty?  Want it clean?  Soft Scrub.  Wash it.  Grab the Soft Scrub and a clean soft cloth and polish the dirt/clay stains right off the plastic and paint.  People used to look at mine and ask me where I found a new 3 wheeler.  I'd been riding it for years.  I just cleaned it up after a hard days ride.  Might be the next day on those days we came home in the dark.

Guess you should inform all the retirees down here that run Aspencade/Goldwing, and harley trikes that operate on public roads how inherently unstable they are...
TL/DR warning. But here goes

Cars operate on public roads does not equal ATV that is operated primarily on private property.

The precedent that was set with banning things-3 wheelers and lawn darts is this.
Draft a societal sacred cow.
Argue that if this thing, not behvaior, not action, but if this thing is used in connection to injury/death, then it must be banned...

I laugh at the hypocrisy of our government.

We can't posses newly manufactured machine guns. Unless SOT...
.gov can.
We get caught with emissions deleted diesels? We pay hefty fines may even serve jail time.
But... if you're .gov agency? You're exempt from emissions standards.
Picture placing all the emissions control devices in humvees, tanks, MRAPs, duece and a halfs.
You'd have entire fleets worth of vehicles broke down on their way to re-supply a base, on their way to give support, the whole 9.

There were a few fire trucks, a bunch of Lenco armored trucks, and even a few SORP packaged 6.0s that belonged to municipalities/.gov agencies/.mil that I deleted emissions shit on. Because .gov vehicle, does not need to conform to .gov emissions.

I laugh harder at the lemming society that is okay with focusing on things and not actions/behavior.
Especially so at the "Muh personal responsibilityz" crowd.
You know. The ones who will argue against being arbitrarily labeled a felon because leftist gun control scheme, but will side with leftists logic of "things" or seeking .gov to pass legislation to protect them from themselves...
It's why we can't have nice things...

Like say... oh... Yamaha Banshees...
2 stroke leisure vehicle/toy-evil per the EPA...
Deleted diesel truck that will be reliable/million mile engine, evil. Yours is to buy neutered truck that will be in the shop as much as it is on the road. Because you know, the whole nation is the LA basin where there's a high population density and smog lingering...

1 size does not fit all. It makes some sense for strict emissions in concrete jungles... no airflow in shit hole cities... so of course it's going to be a problem in cities...

As for three wheelers I laugh at the generation that clutched pearls and thought of the childrenz yet cruises A1A on 3 wheeled Harleys and goldwings...

We're running out of shit to ban. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if expiramental/small air craft hobby pilots wind up targeted. No more small air planes with 4 pots missing catalytic converters.

When you grow up in the sticks, and the cityiot/suburbanites come and local cuckservatives lend credibility wholesale to their bullshit ordinances to make it more like "back home", and everything fun gets banned arbitrarily through noise ordinances to re-zoning efforts, you'll probably wind up holding the same views as me. You'll see their altruistic false concerns be addressed, and everything you partake in for fun/hobbies becomes illegal/fined, misdemeanor charges.

Re-zone an area "residential".
You just lost hunting and if you owned a few acres? Tough shit about your backyard shooting range.
Think of the childrenz who may wonder through the woods and become bullet magnets. Even if you walked the woods prior. Even if you had a fenced in property with signs posted every 10 feet "No trespassing"
What starts as, no discharging of a firearm within so many feet of a residential area? Feet become yards. Yards become acres. Then you're reduced to "sanctioned/approved" shooting ranges. Have no fear, for the fuckers will try and get those shut down too.

Same logic as those shit heels buying houses near a race track or farm or airport...

Own a few acres. Have trails/track to ride quads dirt bikes snowmobiles 3 wheelers?
Tough shit kid. There's cityiots coming up on the weekend that want their ideal slice of heaven on earth pie and hate noise so much they'll call the cops to come slap your peepee for riding on your/your parents property.

Stop turning America into an HOA.
Have consistency. If you're Pro2A. Believe it is an individuals/personal responsibility (behavior) for the outcome, and not the inanimate object, then it should apply to everything else...

Example of the personal responsibility logic.
You voluntarily purchased a 3 wheeled ATV. Your safety/health/life is dependent upon your knowing how to operate that thing without flipping it.
Common sense would say, you don't go wide open throttle day 1 in corners/turns uneven terrain. You learn it and your limitations slowly and surely... then one day you eventually can fly around trails without flipping...

But since coddling, lawyers suing the shit out of everyone we need more .gov and warning labels.
Don't go learning how to operate that machine proficiently... that's just crazy talk that transcends the nanny statists mindset of thinking of the [insert societal sacred cow]

Here's some really Attached File
Logic.


Absolute degeneracy^ nanny state 1 size fits all bullshit right there.


I don't know about yall... but at 13 I was 5'8 and chubby. 90cc ATV? The fuck was I gonna do with that? Can't jump it safely. Can't do much of anything except put put around... because that's fun...

Fuck that.
Stop banning things due to your projection/short comings/ineptitude via altruistic thinking of societal sacred cow.

It's why we can't have nice things... or fun things.
Like say... oh... every vehicle being manufactured has nanny state intervention devices like traction and stability control, 87 cabin airbags... all arbitrary mandated/regulated by .gov
Costs to R&D and mass produce bundled into the price of new vehicles whether you wanted that retard bullshit or not.
Maybe stop finger fucking a phone, raise the standard of obtaining a driver's license and the price of vehicles wouldn't outpace inflation.
I've proven that here a couple times...

Lol I came to post tgis

Like dads’ guns that shoot their kids’ friends when sonny is showing it to them? Your friend rolled it, it didn’t roll itself.

No, it was bullshit I had an ATC 90, 185s, 200x and 250R. They aren't at all dangerous if one spends a couple minutes learning to ride them.

Compared to dirt bikes, 3 wheelers are a fuckton "safer" and easier to ride.

In my 4 years of riding my CR500R, it nearly killed me everytime I rode the fucker. Compared to 15 years of low drama riding any of my 3 wheelers, from a little kid to adult.
Zero injuries from 15 years of 3 wheelers, fucked up knees and down one ACL from 4 years on dirt bikes.

The 200s was the one ran as a teen. Cousin had a 250R and that was a beast.

They were just asking for trouble with those ads. Kids flying through the air, doing wheelies....

Operating something outside its performance envelope is “normal operation?” Slow down in turns so you don’t roll, keep your feet on the pegs so they don’t go under the tires, don’t climb hills that are too steep so you don’t go over backward.

Did you see the TV advertisements for the 3 wheelers in that video posted? They probably could have avoided the ban if they didn't show wheelies, jumps, powerslides etc. Zero awareness of the all-powerful Karens.

A simple “no, I didn’t know what I was doing” would have been sufficient.

I had one too during my entire childhood.  Never did stupid stuff, never had a problem.  Funny how that works.

That’s my point — if you’re going to do dumb things that the atc/motorcycle/whatever isn’t made to do, go ahead and do them — but don’t THEN complain about what a “death trap” it is.

My dad bought us two sometime in the 80's, a Kawasaki 110 and a 200  The 200 had a clutch, so we never drove it...but we beat the hell out of the 110.  It was dead nuts reliable, and would always crank within 1-3 pulls....but it was always trying to kill you.  We learned VERY QUICKLY to respect that machine, and the only real injury we ever had was my younger brother and me hitting a cable pulled across a driveway.  Luckily, it just hit the headlight and flipped us over!  Otherwise, it was just as safe as you were.  Any time I drove it, I assumed it was trying to turn over, so an any uneven ground, I would keep most of my body to the high side...that way, I could bail off at any given time.

Unless Twitter threatens to kick Trump off, then GD loves govt.

3 wheelers are bullshit backwards triangles, and ushered in the quad tards who get public lands closed and ruin single track.

No, they should've minded their own business.

I had a few Honda ATCs back in the day, I'm more of a dirt bike guy than an ATV guy, I think they should still be an option but I bet they would've gone away not long after quads came out.

Kinda want a chopper big red

With all of the people here praising the gov for banning shit, I'm starting to think I accidentally logged on to DU.

Who was complaining?

It's ok to admit a particular design has some inherent weaknesses. Anyone that has spent time in a tractor knows it can be extremely useful but also dangerous in some situations. I have known of several people in my area that have died on tractors or been injured with farm equipment. They weren't doing wheelies or power slides, they were farming.


Was it their fault? Absolutely. But shit happens in real life and that is just the way it is. We can still say that a tractor with close set front wheels is more dangerous than when further apart.

Pretending people don't exceed intended designs is just not reasonable. You and two other people ride your three wheelers exactly as intended, great. Everyone else tore that shit up.

Alcohol + Rain + Flat field + 350X = Best Time Ever

The best I can tell is I'm only alive because the beer kept me nice and limber when the ATC would dirt plant me!  I remember hill climbing and relying on a certain tree to catch me at the top since you had no steering when you peaked the hill. They were fun,  but as a parent now,  I would never let my kids ride one,  so damned dangerous.

Should it be legal to sell rear steer cars?

Less gubmint beddah gubmint.   Freedumb has its price and if someone wants to ride one, let him/her.

Ever.

As someone who’s operated a LOT of forklifts without tipping one over, I say yes. Would they drive and handle a lot differently than traditional front-steer cars? Absolutely. Require training and/or demonstration of competence like with all other vehicles.

They actually didn’t.

Correct.  Industry quit making them, presumably to head off calls for legislation that might have affected other products.

As I understand import of ATCs was effectively banned a few years ago by a law suspending imports until safety standards are drafted.  They’ll probably never draft the standards.

My dad had this one when i was growing up. We would take it to Glamis alot. I remember it vividly as we wrecked on it once when i was on the back and i rolled down a 40ft dune when i was about 12. The other we were riding on it and started getting shot at near the border by god knows who and had to gun it WOT on a dune crest for about 2 miles.


WAS A BLAST

He had one like this but had somew hite fenders on it

That’s what they did. Their natural center of gravity was upside down. I policed a few of those accidents when I was a cop. It was always the same, a pre sixteen teen with paraplegic or quadraplegic injuries. My ex wife was a nurse on a neurology floor, she called Those Honda trikes “ Quads”because  that’s what they turned you into.

"New" 3-wheelers are made every day from converted dirtbikes...

An ATC250R that was totally clapped out at that time gave me three herniated disks in my neck.

I was not really even moving at the time either.

Guy that was with me thought I was dead it was so freakish of an accident.

Attached File

Yes, on many levels.