An editorial from The Register-Herald
BECKLEY, W.Va. — After our long winter, it’s one of the perks of living in West Virginia that with the arrival of spring we get to enjoy our beautiful mountains, streams and trails.
But each spring brings its own cautionary tales about safety in the outdoors.
This past weekend, it was a pair of ATV accidents in Fayette County that served as a reminder that celebrating winter’s end by getting outside can end in tragedy if safety measures are cast away in celebration of warmer weather.
Law enforcement officers say the four people injured in those ATV accidents are going to be all right.
And that’s good. What isn’t good is that West Virginia leads the nation when it comes to per capita deaths from ATV accidents.
We ranked third in total number of deaths between 2007 and 2011, with 96, behind Kentucky (122) and Pennsylvania (97).
For our population, the death rate from ATV accidents was highest at 105 per 10 million people.
Odds being what they are, nobody expects a severe ATV wreck will happen to them.
But they do.
Why is West Virginia’s ranking so high? Well, we’ve got a lot of ATVs, for one.
But it’s also how we use them…
