The crashes don’t often happen on the highway….but they are still count in the highway patrol’s traffic figures. Get hurt or killed riding an all-terrain vehicle miles from the nearest road….and you become a statistic for the highway patrol’s crash reports. Hospitals are required to report when victims of traffic crashes show up for treatment. Sometimes those crashes, even if they’re on a person’s private property, can lead to charges.

Patrol spokesman Tim Hull says the patrol is seeing a lot of ATV crashes involving alcohol…and a lot of them in which the riders do not have helmets on.

Hull says some crashes happen because riders over-estimate the capabilities of the vehicles.

ATV use on roads is limited to agriculture purposes. Operators are not required to have drivers licenses if they stay on private property. There’s no minimum age for the operator of them….

But Hull says drunks who wreck their ATVs can be arrested even if the incident happens on private property.  He says Missouri’s drunk driving laws do not require the offense to be committed on a road or street.

 

Dowlload Bob Priddy’s story (:59 mp3)