Trying to kill kids

[Ozarker]

I doubt anyone with any common sense would believe this story if I just told it so I added the picture. It is a little fuzzy because I took it with a telephoto lens and then blew it up.

My neighbor decided to build a go cart for his kids and the final product is in the picture. It has a pretty good frame but that's about it. No roll cage, no seat belt, heck.....no seat.

A couple of 10 year old's are driving this death trap all over the area here. They haven't gone in the road yet but I'll bet it is just a matter of time.

Just how stupid are some people anyway?

 

[Inspector507]

Evidently pretty darned stupid.

 

[s1120]

Well, I got to say. It does look a step or to above what I made as a kid.

 

[budman72]

Just proves Darwin was right!!

 

[dgood1]

The gene pool will probably have a slightly smaller amount in it. If we don't learn from other's mistakes then we have a strong potential to repeat them.

Don

 

[Turfman]

Interesting how the gene pool thins itself. Just be glad they didn't show up to get you kid with it. I know if there were one of these in my neighborhood my 10 year old would figure away to get on it and drive it. You can teach them and one day they just make their own (stupid) decisions.

Turfman

 

[Ozarker]

Fortunately, my kids are grown and gone. But yes, they would have be on it when I wasn't looking.

 

[ronjhall]

Ozarker
Doesn’t look like it has any brakes either. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

 

[DocHeb]

Their relative representation in the gene pool may not be reduced. Nature sometimes substitutes quantity when quality is lacking. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Mrwurm]

Looks like the fuel tank doubles as a seat-back.

Reminds me of when I was a dumb kid. We use to get 8ft diameter O-rings from sewer construction sites and use them as giant rubber bands. We would climb a big oak tree and tie the rubber band up there. We would then take turns sitting in the loop and be pulled back to launch position by about four or five other kids. The flight was great, but you always had to land.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I've built some cages for go karts.

It isn't the turning over so much I fear. After all they don't put cages or belts on racing carts and some of them go way over a hundred miles per hour.

It's hitting things.

A friend of mine had a neighbor over one Sunday evening. The neighbor's kid wanted to ride the go kart. So they let him. As the kid came down the drive he forgot how to stop and hit the throttle. It happened he was aimed right at the bumper of the three quarter ton Chevy pickemup.

Bud tackled the kid just prior to impact. Probably saved the kid's life. But he was still careflighted to the children's hospital with severe injuries.

It doesn't take much imagination to get sick to the stomach at the thought of a kid on a go kart crashing into a barbwire fence at speed.

 

[knucklehead]

I agree that it is not safe, and that we used to do the same thing - I was going to start out with "what's wrong with it with a little common sense", but then I remembered.............we outlawed that in the 70's /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

It'd be neat to come up with some cartoons contrasting, say, a tire swing from the 60's, and the product as it would be required to be manufactured today. My wife and I are still LOL whenever we go by a school that has or is in the process of tearing down their huge and extravagant heavy wood beam, used tire, and chain playground/castle/monstrosity that cost $50,000 to build for the children. They are now deemed unsafe because of a few cracks and splinters, or someone might get their finger stuck in the chain, plus the tires are considered hazardous waste (as opposed to the "history" taught inside the school building?). And of course they can't replace them with good old iron fixtures - it must be carnival colors and equally as extravagant as the efforts of 15-20 years ago. We're smug in the fact that we considered the initial swell of enthusiasm to be more of a parental keeping up with the Joneses (between towns) than an effort to please kids, and that the playgrounds would turn into a problem due lack of maintenance and poor construction methods. Aren't we nasty old Grinches? /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

Wish I'd been smart enough to slide by and pick up the wood - /w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif

 

[centex]

It looks a lot like what all of my friends and I grew up driving except for lack of a seat back. Funny thing is that none of us ever got hurt on them. I think we were just not stupid enough to drive them on hills and ditches where we could turn them over and get hurt. In fact we spun them many, many times and I still don't know how you could turn one over but I am sure there is a way if you really want to. Of course we were not allowed to ride them on the street.

 

[patrickg]

Ozarker, You can get away with condeming the idiot parents now, before a kid gets killed, but after a kid gets killed the parents are punished by their grief and any attempt to point out that their's was criminal negligence and should be prosecuted will result in a ^*)(^% not unlike the thread titled something like "Prosecute the parents" which might make interesting reading for you if you develope insomnia or your Sat TV is blanked out by too much water in the rcv path.


Patrick

 

[Ozarker]

I cutting grass today and stopped to talk to him. I told him I would be glad to help him finish it with a roll cage and seat if he would go scrounge up the materials. I have a seat belt in a van I'm parting out that would be perfect for it once we weld in a bracket. I think he'll take me up on the offer.

 

[MikePA]

<font color=blue>I told him I would be glad to help him finish it with a roll cage and seat if he would go scrounge up the materials. I have a seat belt in a van I'm parting out that would be perfect for it once we weld in a bracket. I think he'll take me up on the offer. </font color=blue>

While this is certainly very kind of you, are you sure you want to assume this potential liability should someone be injured, or worse, on a vehicle you've worked on?

 

[Ozarker]

Liability isn't an issue if I am helping him install his parts. I didn't tell him I would do it. I told him I would help him do it. And that is what I will do. Help him do it.

It is no different that if you come to my house because I have a floor jack and I help you rotate your tires. If one of them falls off later it isn't because of my jack. It is because you failed to make sure all the lug nuts were tight on your car.

You are the supervisor. I am the helper.

 

[s1120]

<font color=red>If one of them falls off later it isn't because of my jack. It is because you failed to make sure all the lug nuts were tight on your car. </font color=red>

Sadly that is not always the case these days. No one seems to want to take any responsablty for there actions. It is a sad time when people don't want to help anyone, becouse they may get sued

 

[AndyR]

When I was a much younger lad (late 60's early 70's) I built a go cart (more like a soapbox racer) out of old parts and boards. 'Even had a steering wheel, a 6 volt car battery and this huge old truck horn mounted on the nose. An old chair without the legs made for the seat. After school, we would drag it up the top of a good sized hill and have fund riding it down the street (farm country, not much traffic back then). Never forgot the time a friend came over and ended up wiping out, ripping open his knee and splitting the battery. Nowadays they'd probably arrest you for making something like that but we all had a blast!

 

[Hawkflyer]

<font color=blue>Just how stupid are some people anyway?</font color=blue>Ozarker - Couldn't help notice that you asked this question like there might be some limit to peoples stupidity. So far my experiance is that people have a boundless capacity for stupidity./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif