I didn’t understand the drama with three-wheelers when I started reading into the story. I had several Honda ATCs back in the day, years before I could come close to even driving around in a car without somebody immediately calling the cops to inform them that a midget was cruising around in a clapped-out Chevy. Before I had cleared middle school I knew how to toss a Honda 200 into a perpetual figure-eight drift that only ended when I developed a cramp in the thumb I was pinning the throttle with. I had stood one onto its rear fender plastic while hopping out over a log in the woods after sinking the poor bastard into a “puddle” that the adults thought wasn’t so deep. I had my share of screw ups and injuries, no doubt…I ran myself over after my leg wound up underneath the big rear tire, I tipped it over, I bucked myself off. But by no means were the three-wheelers any more dangerous than my dirt bikes of the same era. If anything, they were safer. I could recover the three wheeler. If I screwed up on the bike, I was going to eat shit, usually face-first right into the nearest blackberry bush.
But history has said that the trike was a monster, a killer, a Dangerous Thing™ that was surely going to break little Timmy’s neck if he so much as looked at one sideways. Jesus, how did parents who fell for that kind of crap let their kids go out on dates…with chaperones of both sexes to the nearest movie theatre that was playing a Disney flick? Kids and adults had fun. Some got hurt because they overdrove their abilities. Things happen. That’s life in a nutshell, but there is no way that anyone is willing to understand that anymore, and they didn’t in the 1980s either, when safety nazis went after ATV manufacturers under the banner of “Think of the children!”
Check out this video. It’s great. I’m going to go surf Marketplace now. I think I have a need that needs a bit of scratching.
Way, way more nimble and fun than a four wheeler. I used to love to watch people who never drove one panic, put their feet down and tear their shoes right off their feet.
The hard thing was that steering them was counter intuitive. Anyone who ever ride any kind of a two wheeled bike knew that to turn you leaned into the turn. Do that on a three wheeler and it just goes straight. You actually had to almost lean into the outside rear tire. Once you mastered this oddity it was no problem, they were a hoot to ride. Accidents and injuries usually occurred with first time riders. Tried to turn in the front yard, ATC went straight. Straight into a car, or a tree or…
When Honda started making four wheeled models one of the first fatal crashes was when a kid with not enough seat time flipped it.
When I was stationed at Eglin AFB in Florida, there was a carnival operator out in Fort Walton Beech that was just pitched right out in the sand dunes. One of the attractions was “buy a ticket and ride the Honda 3-wheelers”! They had this huge area of the dunes fenced off, and you just bought a ticket and had at it! It was awesome! Almost like we were free Americans living in a land of liberty. Huh. WTF were we thinking?
My cousin who was 4 yrs older than me got one & proceeded to run over his own foot repeatedly having been riding motorcycles for most of his life. He finally sold it because he couldn’t unlearn years of riding behavior. I watched too many get a little sideways on steep hills in the Colorado mountains & roll down the length of the hills.
They definitely had issues.
Yep, untrained riders. You steered them with your feet on the pegs, not the handlebars.