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3 wheelers rule
At the risk of being called a homosexual nazi again I'll jump back in here. My original post refereed to children. This post from hockeyhead also refers to kids but does not specify ages.
When legal driving age was established years ago, age 16 was not just pulled out of a hat. Studies showed that there is insufficient brain development prior to that age to safely operate a moving vehicle, especially at any sort of speed.
The problem centers around the inability to look forward and anticipate the need to stop or turn in the moments ahead. Instead, life appears to be rushing at the child, especially at any sort of speed, and they simply hit things that are easily avoidable to adults.
How many times have you seen a really small child walk right into a piece of furniture? The brain does not fully develop the ability to avoid that problem until around age sixteen for most kids.
When we as adults drink too much we regress back through those stages of development and at a certain point we start running into walls again. If we keep drinking past that point we end up crawling and soiling our britches too.
So here I go again....... don't put your children on any sort of motorized equipment until they are ready. And even then make sure the speeds at which they ride stay on the low side and make sure they are wearing helmets.
Now I just have to wait for some 40 year old to tell me what a pinko-commie gun grabber a$$#*le I am for pointing out plain facts.
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3 wheelers rule
Mark, 16 years old and enough brain development????????? 
Maybe in some very few cases. For most males it is more like 28. I told my daughters no dating until they are 24! Girls seem to develop common sense sooner than the boys. Just kiddin'...... I am sure I will have that bridge shoved up my kazzoo when the time comes!
I have seen so many times where parent just turn their carpet monsters loose with no supervision on these ATV's. Really makes no difference where they are 2,3, or 4 wheel ATV's.......... if they are driven by an irresponsible idiot or and unsupervised child in a manor they were not designed for, bad results happen. Murf summed it up with "loose nut behind the wheel". This applies to what are now called PWC's but I call PWT's. (Personal Water Turds)
Mark, if it will make you feel better if I tell you what a a pinko-commie gun grabber a$$#*le you are, I can. I've been a Benefactor Life Member of the NRA for many years and listened to Rush for as long as he has been on the air. We can both go turn in our membership cards and T-shirts together.
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3 wheelers rule
I have more off-road experience than most people. I raced unlimited motorcycles in the California Desert and have been to Baja Mexico a few times.
The serious accidents that I have seen on three wheelers have all come when they started to tip to the outside of a turn and a person puts their outside foot down to stop the roll and the rear wheel runs up their leg. I have seen this type of accident several times. I expect that the accident would have been less damaging if the "world had just rushed at the rider" and they had not planted a foot in the path of the oncoming rear wheel.
I agree with Murf about the three wheelers and the minimal damage, but that is directly related to vehicle weight and tire patch area. You could easily accomplish the same thing on a four wheeler with large wide tires. There are six wheel ATVs that use skid steer that also use balloon tires that I expect are pretty light on terrain. (Except for skid steering)
I do not know why the factories use smaller tires on current 4 wheelers. But, I do know that the three wheelers that I have seen in the Baja races had all switched to small tires. At the time, I was used to seeing the three wheelers with the big balloon tires and the small wheeled racers really looked different. I don't know the reason for the small tires in these circumstances either, but racers don't usually adopt a losing strategy.
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3 wheelers rule
The small wheels are purely physics at play. Smaller tires have smaller contact patches, therefore they contact the ground under greater load, the greater loading equates to better traction. In racing of course traction equates to better speed, acceleration and handling (especially in high speed corners).
Environmental concerns such as high flotation and limiting tire spin is of little concern compared to getting there first.
The 3 wheeler we ran in the arctic was a odd little thing, it was really wide in the back and ran fairly small tires in width, but quite tall. The logic was taller tires gave higher speeds at lower rev's, giving higher travel speeds and better fuel economy, they also rolled over ridges and such better. Since their world is fairly flat hill-climbing and deep torque was of no concern to them.
Let me tell you 65 mph across frozen tundra is quite thrill, especially when the nearest hospital is 1000 miles away, and it only has 4 beds.....
My comment about limited damage from the tires is actaully something which is nearly impossible to replicate with a 4 wheeler. If you are travelling at a slow, sane speed, it is VERY easy to lean to the outside and lift the inside wheel up slightly, at which point the live axle becomes a moot point since the inner whell is spinning in the air, not chewing up the ground. Steering & throttle manipulation makes this remarkably easy to do with very little practice. A 4 wheeler wouldn't be able to do this, the geometry of the suspension keps all 4 wheels on the ground.
Best of luck.
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3 wheelers rule
I had not really thought about this before. Three wheelers have never been something I was interested in. I was just relaying my observations.
Murf, I imagine that you are right. In thinking about it a little further, I also expect that the smaller wheels enable longer suspension travel while lowering the CG for better high speed turning. The smaller tires would also have stiffer sidewalls and less tendency to roll under the wheel in a turn. These are all good things in a racing vehicle.
I had never read this thread before it popped up again. I now understand some of the references in the previous posts. I was probably just beginning to look at this board when this started, and I was only interested in the NH tractor section at that time. Mark, I can honestly say that I would NEVER peg you as a gun grabbing left leaning homosexual nazi.
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3 wheelers rule
I suppose if Mark were were riding a 3 wheeler and had to make a hard right turn to avoid running into a bear or cougar he might be just a little bit left-leaning and gun-grabbing... but it would be perfectly understandable given the circumstances,  MAO.
As for the homosexual nazi part, NEVER!!
Best of luck.
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3 wheelers rule
valid points murf, In the area I live in 4-wheelers, dirt bikes, mini-bikes,go-carts and the latest craze golf carts are used as basic transpartation, mostly by children between 11 and 17 years old. As the closest homes are 400ft apart and the nearest paved road is 5 miles away, there are a few established trails and all the kids know to stay out of the fields with crops so the kids ride the road edge back and forth to their friends homes. Now 3-wheeler were originally marketed as some kind of dirt,trail bike. Built to perform on un-improve land at a rate of speed to induce a thrill, just as a very large segment of 4-wheelers are today. Their demise came when the public opinion believed they were more dangerous than a dirt bike,thus the 4-wheeler was born. Also certainly the 13 year old driving that 3-wheeler took that turn to fast for that machine and the higher center of gravity with two riders was a factor but she was not moving at 20 plus mph more like 12 or 15 mph and probably braked late. The fact that one of our TRX-300s made that same turn just before was startling, but that 3-wheeler will dust any of my 4-wheelers in a flat out drag race. That much power and that unstable?? anyway I'd read this forum when I first signed up and when it became active again and then the tumble in my drive ,anyway thats my .02 worth.
also the best time I ever had riding 4-wheelers by far was in the foothills surounding Kingman AZ. (sister lives there) and my brother-in-law took me on this ATV day trip sponsered by the local ATV club great rocky climb atleast 20 machines in our group and no 3-wheelers all
4-wheelers, most water cooled, I need more convincing
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10-22-2003, 08:47 
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