Regulators Push Safety Standards for A.T.V.’s

In the $5 billion market for All Terrain Vehicles, the skyrocketing growth of Chinese imports is becoming the latest challenge for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is starting a global campaign to improve the safety of a product that kills more people — about 900 a year — than any of the 15,000 other products the commission regulates.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is creating new safety rules under legislation passed last year that took voluntary industry standards for A.T.V.’s and made them mandatory. And it is scrutinizing sales of Chinese A.T.V.’s over the Internet.

“We’ve seen cases where the Chinese manufacturers have not met our standards,” said Inez Tenenbaum, the commission’s chairwoman, who led a 10-member United States delegation that met last month with government officials and A.T.V. manufacturers in the industrial city of Taizhou in the Jiangsu Province of China. “We explained to them, here are the specs that we have and you will have to build based on our standards.”

While last year’s legislation gave the commission broad new powers to regulate A.T.V.’s, both imported and American-made, the Chinese-made vehicles present a special problem. As is the case with other Chinese imports, like tainted toys and drywall, legal accountability can prove hard to establish, and the commission often can only clamp down on problem products after the damage has been done and reported.

A big concern is that most of the Chinese A.T.V.’s are used by children, some as young as 6. The legislation expanding the commission’s purview was the result of tainted imports from China in the first place — contaminated pet food and toys coated in lead paint — and covers items used by children under 12, including A.T.V.’s.

“As with other products that come in from China,” said Russ Reiner, a trial lawyer in Redding, Calif., who specializes in vehicle rollover cases, “it is difficult for the commission to have a mandate that will really affect Chinese manufacturers. It is difficult to police. Many times, products come here through shell corporations. The commission can warn the public about products that are not safe. But generally, there is no action until after consumers make complaints.”

For the most part, the A.T.V. market is divided into two groups: The first, in industry jargon, are the traditionals, which are big American and Japanese companies like Polaris, Honda, Yamaha, Arctic Cat, Kawasaki and Suzuki. The traditionals make and sell their products in the United States. Chinese imports, which began to enter the market in the last decade, make up the second group. In 2002, fewer than 100,000 imported A.T.V.’s were sold, compared with 800,000 sold by the traditional sellers.

That gap has narrowed. Last year, according to a report from Power Products Marketing, a research firm based in Minneapolis, the traditionals sold only 220,000 more units than the Chinese, although both groups’ sales have suffered in the economic downturn.

Chinese A.T.V. makers specialize in the smaller, less-powerful vehicles that are usually used by children, from 6 to 16 years old. More than 83 percent of all youth vehicles are imports, while the traditional makers cater to the adult market and manufacture the bulk of the bigger models.

On average, the commission reports, more than 100 children are killed each year in A.T.V. accidents, and 40,000 more are sent to the emergency room. The commission does not break down whether those accidents occurred on Chinese A.T.V.’s or domestic ones.

Until last year’s Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, A.T.V. safety standards were strictly voluntary and followed only by the traditional sellers. The trade association representing traditional A.T.V. makers welcomed the mandatory standards as a way of leveling the playing field with the imports.

Of course, traditional sellers have much to gain from shutting their rising competitors out of the American market, or, at least, leveling the playing field. And most deaths on A.T.V.’s are adults, most often riding one of the traditional vehicles.

For that reason, consumer advocates say the mandatory standards are inadequate, regardless of who makes the vehicle. “A.T.V.’s have been killing and maiming for years,” said Sue Rabe, who helped found Concerned Families for ATV Safety, after her 10-year-old son was killed when the A.T.V. he was driving rolled over and fell on him. “This is taking the Chinese up to the American standard. But the American standard isn’t good, either.”