How To Ride An ATV Safely

By: Stephen Thiele

Break Studios Contributing Writer

Looking for information on how to ride an ATV safely? Riding an ATV is always fun, but you need to take all necessary precautions to ensure that you will not harm yourself or others while you are riding your ATV. To ride an ATV safely, you should always wear protective gear, know the passenger capacity of your ATV, and follow all signs on the ATV trails that you are riding on.

  1. Wear protective gear. This may seem like common sense, but many people do not wear protective gear while they are riding their ATV. To ride an ATV safely, you should wear shoulder pads, chest protectors, knee pads, and shin pads, in addition to wearing a helmet. You can even purchase off-road jerseys that come with built-in shoulder pads and chest protectors and off-road pants that have knee and shin pads. To protect your hands while you are riding your ATV, you should also wear off-road style gloves.
  2. Passenger capacity. To ride an ATV safely, you need to know the passenger capacity of your ATV. If you are driving a single operator ATV, you should not, under any circumstances, have any passengers with you. The vast majority of ATVs are single operator ATVs. You will be putting both your life and your passenger's life at risk if you do not strictly adhere to the passenger capacity of your ATV.
  3. Follow trail signs. You should never drive an ATV on public roads. In fact, chances are that you will receive a ticket from your local police department if you are caught riding your ATV on public roads. To ride an ATV safely, you should ride your ATV only on ATV trails. While riding on ATV trails, follow all driving signs and stick to the speed limit. The signs on ATV trails are designed to ensure that you remain on land. It may seem like fun to drive over the speed limit, but the speed limit is there to protect everyone that is riding on the trails.

If you have no experience with ATVs, you should take an ATV rider course so that you can learn how to ride an ATV safely.

Posted on: Sep. 14, 2010