Photo: Liveleak capture
Speeding on snow is probably safe if you're in the middle of a field or a frozen lake, but riding mindlessly on public roads almost never ended well. The video below is a textbook example of why being a reckless motorist can be bad for one's health.
For starters, we believe that having Russia as the location for this crash has nothing to do with its dynamics. We saw this type of accidents occur all over the world; speeding and mindless riding are universal, so let's not bicker about this.
What is more important is to understand what led to this nasty crash and learn from these fellows' mistakes. Obviously, the biggest guilt lies with the ATV rider, who is clearly doing more than one or two mph above the legal limit. If you ask us, he's doing way over the safe limit, but maybe he has some Finnish rally genes, right?
Once ATVs pick up speed in the snow, slowing them quickly becomes impossible, and we know this from personal experience. And when something goes wrong, as it did this time, trying to steer clear of obstacles and hope for the best is the last thing a rider can do. If he or she is lucky, that is.
With the quad already traveling beyond the point where firm control was possible, the fact that the driver who steered left did not use the turn signals becomes almost irrelevant. Sure, in case he had used them, his part of blame for this accident would have most likely gone over to the ATV rider.
From this point on, avoiding the final collision was a matter of luck. The ATV rider manages to avoid clipping the all-terrain car but is pushed into a slide he can no longer control, on a trajectory that intersects that of the camera car.
It doesn't need a motorcycle safety expert to figure out that a helmet would have been a very useful choice for the ATV rider, does it? We don't know anything about the injuries the rider suffered, but considering the height of the quad, we can hope his left leg was not caught between the four-wheeler and the car.
What is more important is to understand what led to this nasty crash and learn from these fellows' mistakes. Obviously, the biggest guilt lies with the ATV rider, who is clearly doing more than one or two mph above the legal limit. If you ask us, he's doing way over the safe limit, but maybe he has some Finnish rally genes, right?
Once ATVs pick up speed in the snow, slowing them quickly becomes impossible, and we know this from personal experience. And when something goes wrong, as it did this time, trying to steer clear of obstacles and hope for the best is the last thing a rider can do. If he or she is lucky, that is.
With the quad already traveling beyond the point where firm control was possible, the fact that the driver who steered left did not use the turn signals becomes almost irrelevant. Sure, in case he had used them, his part of blame for this accident would have most likely gone over to the ATV rider.
From this point on, avoiding the final collision was a matter of luck. The ATV rider manages to avoid clipping the all-terrain car but is pushed into a slide he can no longer control, on a trajectory that intersects that of the camera car.
It doesn't need a motorcycle safety expert to figure out that a helmet would have been a very useful choice for the ATV rider, does it? We don't know anything about the injuries the rider suffered, but considering the height of the quad, we can hope his left leg was not caught between the four-wheeler and the car.
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