WASHINGTON -- The government announced an agreement Wednesday with 10 Japanese and American firms that would ban sales of three-wheel all-terrain vehicles blamed for hundreds of deaths but would allow continued sales of four-wheel ATVs.
Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns told reporters the decree would permit the government to avoid protracted litigation while 'getting the mostest for the leastest amount of time.'
He said the ATV industry had 'capitulated' on all major issues of conflict except the most controversial: a proposal to recall all three-wheelers and provide refunds to their owners. Burns said the industry refused that proposal.
The decree, which allows 45 days for further negotiation before it takes effect, stipulates that no new three-wheelers could be sold and all existing three-wheelers would be removed from inventories. Distributors would grant refunds to the dealers with three-wheelers in stock.
The three-wheel vehicles, which are driven over hills, beaches and deserts, have been blamed for most of the 900 deaths and 330,000 accidents attributed to ATVs since 1982. There are between 2.2 and 2.3 million ATVs in use today, two-thirds of them three-wheelers.
The agreement allows sales of the four-wheel ATVs, but requires warning labels on all vehicles sold. It also orders dealers to post a 4-foot by 4-foot warning sign in their showrooms and offer free driver training to all people who have bought ATVs during the last 12 months and for all new buyers.
The warning recommends limiting larger ATVs to riders 16 years and older. The industry had issued its own warnings on the larger ATVs, recommending they be limited to riders 14 and older.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted 2-1 Tuesday to accept the decree after voting unanimously to pursue a lawsuit that was filed Wednesday by the commission and the Justice Department along with the decree. The preliminary decree was accepted by U.S. District Judge John Pratt.
Commission Chairman Terrence Scanlon said he supported the decree because the lawsuit could take years.
'The result might well be years of litigation without any safety benefits during these years,' Scanlon said.
But commission member Anne Graham, who opposed the decree because it made too many concessions to the industry, said her dissent 'stems from my deep concern about the imminent hazards ATVs pose and the industry's lack of concern or commitment to the consumer's safety.'
The decree drew quick and sharp criticism from the chairmen of two House consumer affairs subcommittees and from at least one state attorney general.
Rep. James Florio, D-N.J., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee and a long-time commission critic, said the decree 'isn't so much a settlement as a sell-out' that 'doesn't address the crucial issue of protection for people who have already bought ATVs that they mistakenly believed to be safe.'
Rep. Doug Barnard, D-Ga., chairman of the House Government Operations Consumer Affairs Subcommittee, described the agreement as 'woefully deficient.'
Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, meanwhile, said the federal action against the 'rolling death machines' was too little, too late.
Mattox called the agreement a positive step, but he charged that the Justice Department delayed the case and finally took action because of pressure from state officials and consumer groups.
In the meantime, ATV manufacturers said they endorse the agreement. 'We believe the agreement is in everbody's best interest because it avoids protracted and costly litigation,' said Kurt Antonius, a spokesman for American Honda, one of the companies agreeing to the settlement.
The other companies are Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki and its American subsidiaries, and Polaris Industries, a Minneapolis firm.
The Justice Department's Burns, asked by reporters if the government let the ATV industry off the hook by not forcing recalls, said, 'The industry capitulated to each and every (disputed) item.' He later conceded the government could not get the industry to accept a recall or refund program.
The timing of the announcement also drew controversy. CBS reported Wednesday that the government approved the agreement Dec. 15 but delayed announcement for two weeks, suggesting it was timed to come after Christmas.
A Justice Department spokesman described the report as 'utterly and outrageously false.'
