using a lawn mower for younger kids to drive around the farm....ideas?

[OldMcDonald]

Rhinohio, I think your choice of the word hysteria in relation to this thread is unsuitable. I have followed it closely and no poster has shown any sort of hysteria. All who have cautioned of the dangers have been along the same lines - it is good to teach children the value of what is often called "the work ethic" but garden and ag machines are not toys. Sysop's immediately following your post being a prime example of the sort of post in the thread.

Whilst trying to find out for myself about age limits on driving tractors etc. in the US (all I could find was old info on ATVs, which made very sobering reading due to the number of fatalities) I came across an assessment by the American Academy of Paediatrics that 17,000 children require emergency room treatment every single year due only to accidents involving lawnmowers. Young lives blighted or ended by amputations or death, and the parents have to live with that too. 17,000 kids only from lawnmower accidents means the numbers are much higher when we add in other machines.

I note your age, and I am 10 years older. When we were kids the machines causing these injuries and fatalities did not exist.

 

[ultrarunner]

Seems a lot of manufacturers cater to kids... I remember how popular Honda Mini Trail 50 was and much too small for a typical adult... just as many of the child size ATVs

Here is an excerpt from the US Product Safety Commission regarding children and ATVs

Use CPSC guidelines when buying a used machine. For children sixteen and over, look at 90 cc machines and up. For kids twelve through fifteen, 70 cc to 90 cc is the preferred range. For children six to eleven, look at 50 cc machines. Kids under the age of six should never drive gas-powered ATVs.

Lots of my friends under 10 were quarter midget racers in Hayward CA... it was a big Father/Son deal... the minimum age to race competitively is 5.

 

[ruffdog]

Fun people have on plain old riding mowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjJ_PFmIonQ

 

[ultrarunner]

Remind me to never buy a used mower...

Looks like a lot of folks popped the clutch and did back flips...

Maybe a hydro would be less prone to jack rabbit starts?

I guess I could let them ride my dirt bikes to be safe?

 

[KubotainNH]

After my kids mastered bicycles and pedal tractors they were taught to run an old 8hp front engine riding mower. The belt was always off the deck and it was pull start so they couldn't start it on their own which is a huge plus. The unit was worn out enough that dropping the clutch didn't do much. It would just slowly take off when the belt warmed up enough to grab. No wheelies but enough power that the kids could pull a trailer on the back. They helped out by filling it with dirt, rocks, wood or whatever needed to be moved. Fun driving almost always came with work because something had to pay for the fuel. I put chains on the wide rear tires for more traction and they stayed away from the bigger hills. Of course monitoring them was priority one. They were in the 8 to 10 age range when they started. My kids have always been small for their age so they waited until they could reach the clutch pedal. After the oldest mastered that he got to use the 4 wheeler in 1st gear until he was older, they all transitioned into it eventually. My youngest, who is 18, loves to drive the Kubota. The older 2 don't care as much these days. My oldest prefers turbo charged cars and motorcycles.

I would skip a hydro unit for the first one, the only plus I see on it is the hydro braking but it is great if they are actually mowing.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Fun people have on plain old riding mowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjJ_PFmIonQ

Yah getting lawn tractor for a 4 year old sounds like a great idea.

 

[ultrarunner]

Nephew is 12 and neice is 13 and they never fail to ask if I have any mowing for them to do when they visit...

Priceless in my thinking... plus they have the responsibility to check tires, oil, fuel and put it away clean...

I do supply the gas ;-)

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Here's what I discovered the other day, hit with our GoKart by my son's friend...

 

[mark02tj]

Fun people have on plain old riding mowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjJ_PFmIonQ

This is pretty funny stuff! Amazing how often you hear someone say "Oh @@@@!!" right before the inevitable happens! LOL!

And while it's pretty funny, it's also a bit on the scary side. For most of this thread I was in the "get them a deckless lawnmower camp", but I'm tending to change my mind. If you take a look at the video, most of the "wheelie incidents" are on tractor style riders. I never really paid attention to it before, but if you look at the basic design of those mowers, the operator's seat is right above or slightly behind the rear axle. That puts a lot of "leverage" on the tractor when operating on a hill, hence the flipping over end-to-end. Granted, a 7 year old doesn't have quite the same body mass that the 340 pound beer drinking redneck (at 1:40 in the video) has, but the risk is there just the same. If you still want to go the lawnmower route, consider a rear engine rider from Snapper or Ariens (think of the one that Forrest Gump used in the movie to mow the football field). These are long machines (right around 6' long) and the COG is more in the middle rather than to the rear of the axle. They are easy to shift (they use a clutch disk drive which allows shifting on the fly - much like a hydro, but without the expense). They are a bit narrow so rolling one might be a concern, but I used one of these for years and never really felt too tippy. For kids though, I'd probably still try to rig up some sort of ROPS.

I think I'd also give serious consideration to a golf cart. My parents have one for zipping around their retirement community. It seats four, but the rear seat (where the clubs would normally be stored) also folds flat to make a bed of sorts that would be handing for hauling stuff.

Just my $.02.

 

[mark02tj]

Deleted - duplicate post.