Wish I Had a Picture....

Meangreen

Member
Driving home from work yesterday and I see a woman out mowing her lawn with a zero turn with her 6 to 7 year old son sitting on her lap wearing a bicycle helmet for safety. Just shook my head. I know I have heard of a lot of accidents with riders on a zero turn that have not ended nicely. I just don't understand why folks think it's okay to have riders on a machine that 1 was never build for two and 2 has blades traveling at a high rate of speed that will inflict major damage if you were to come in contact with them.

Sorry for the rant, but just trying to play it safe out there.
 
Why do people own 5 gal buckets? Over 50 people a year are killed by accidents involving 5 gal buckets mostly children falling in them and drowning.Why do people own horses? Over 100 people a year get killed by horse kicks and the most dangerous place you can be? In your own home.I guarantee that kid is a lot safer on that mower than in his own kitchen as far as the number of deaths and accidents reported.
 
Well said.
Don't forget bicycles - 19,000 killed or injured each year, skate boards - 30 people each year, hunting - 65, boating - 700, slipping in the bath tub - 16,500, eaten by crocodiles - 1500, killed by Hippopotamus - 3000, snakes - 50,000.
 
I get it, you can die from almost anything, but it was just more ironic I guess that she had a helmet on her kid's head for protection.
 
Picturing a zero-turn with a kid on her lap, wouldn't her arms be on the handles around the kid with her legs on either side as well? Seems a lot safer than, say, a kid riding on a tractor fender. There, you've got no chance. And my kids have been on my lap riding in hay wagons or zoo trains or shuttle buses and I felt that was some level of protection having my arms around them. Be interesting to hear the details of zero-turn accidents with kids and how they happened. Maybe she felt it was safer than having him run around the yard where she might not see where he was.
 
I'm with you. I don't think the helmet would keep the kid from loosing limbs.
Maybe the kid was safe on there today,but it sends the message that it's not something to fear. That could lead to him or her being killed by running up to it next time. Best to lecture kids to stay entirely away from something like that and to fear it as much as the monster in their closet.
 
I'm with you. I bought a ZTR a couple years back and think it has the potential to be more dangerous than anything else around here. They move quick and you can lose control easily on hills or slick areas. People like that are the reason we have to stand on our heads these days just to get the mower to start.
 
Even better years ago when I worked at a Kubota dealer a large front mount mower came in for service and it had a baby car seat bolted onto the side.
 
Couple of years ago I called the Sheriff's Office on a guy I saw out on his place bushhogging with his Kubota. He had a kid sitting on each fender, both under 8. Yeah, I know, they could have been killed in their school bus the next day, but why tempt the Fates?
 
ahh, I know that trick...
they love to 'steer'
worked on me, worked on my son, will work on my grandson soon.
dad taught me to steer riding on his lap....few years later....go mow the yard. lol
(better than a push mower though....trying to push with my chest, and having the handle whack me in the chin on bumps...different world)
 
Better keep them dirty too as the bathtub is one of the most dangerous places for kids.Now that I think about it I know a few adults that must be playing it safe when it comes to the bathtub(LOL)
 
Did you ever think that maybe she has taught the kid to sit still and ride and maybe to pay attention and mind what he was told in general? She also may have been running at a moderate speed and had a plan. I would hate to live near a bunch of nervous nelly busybodies who can't mind their own business, my kids were taught to do as they were told, they could ride on anything because they stayed where they were put.
 
Just got done servicing two zero turn mowers for friend. Just a touch of those handles can really send them off course. When I was a kid I did a lot of stupid things like everybody else. That does not make it right. Sure , people get killed stumbling on a rug, but there are a lot of people walking on rugs that don't get killed. Tempting fate is never wise.
 
Reading some of these responses,all I can say is,there has to be a middle ground of common sense somewhere. There seems to be a segment of the population who favor the "nanny state" where we're told what to do every minute of our lives,but there must be a growing part of the population who think kids are born with a lifetime of knowledge.
These kids are born an empty vessel. They don't know anything until they're taught. Common sense is learned,not passed on through heredity.
Some of you remind me of a person who's kid got locked up and they're flabbergasted,can't believe their little angels would do such a thing!

Then if you ask them if they ever taught them not to,the answer is "No,I trust them to do the right thing". How do you know they know the right thing unless you teach them??!!

Some of you who want to bring up water buckets,bathtubs and bicycles,don't be shocked when your little angels are in the emergency room or on the wrong side of iron bars.

You have to know more than a kid and be more responsible than they are if you want to raise one.
 
I agree they need to be taught safety. I also think there are too many people out there who wake up in the morning and wonder what they'll worry about today.
Take guns. We were taught to respect them and be careful with them.
Now days many kids are taught to be deathly afraid of them. So if they come into contact with one they don't know how to act.
I'd rather have a kid exposed to tractors, mowers, guns and crocodiles while they're young so they can learn about safety and not be bundled off with dire warnings and fear mongering. Scaring them to death isn't helpful either.
 
I agree with you whole heartedly,but if more people would take the responsibility of making sure their kids know right from wrong,safe from danger,there wouldn't be the need for a nanny state mentality. The attitude that they won't stick something in a light socket twice might work for light sockets,but to apply that same mentality to playing in traffic doesn't work. Somebody has the be the parent. The kids will make their own "best friend",that's not the parents job. Applying this to the original post,it's just plain stupid to teach a kid that sitting on a zero turn is the equivalent of sitting in front of the TV "as long as you wear a helmet". My guess is,the parents in that case should have been wearing one when they were growing up sitting there licking the back window on the short bus.
 
Hear Hear, RR. I'm so tired of having the bleeding hearts out there keep enacting laws trying to protect us from ourselves. Maybe it sounds crude, but the law of natural selection tells us that the dumb ones deserve to die. I'll probably catch a bunch of flak from this, but more people like me & you need to stand up and say enough is enough. People came to America to be free from oppression, but the oppression is taking over faster than you think. Our country is great, but freedom is leaving fast. Honestly, it's because of someone like you mention being killed or hurt, and then suddenly they want to enact laws that stifle all of us. They want everyone to pay for their stupidity.
I'm old enough now that I doubt that I'll ever see anything more than more loss of freedoms in my lifetime, but I hold out the hope that future generations will rise up to the challenge and reverse the trend. I ain't holding my breath, though.
Who else out there feels like I do?
 
No future generation is going to reverse this trend, we will eventually be free of individual politicians such as our current president but we will never be free of the weak minded masses that elected him. More than half of the country needs or wants the government to hold their hands from cradle to grave. They will continue to vote for whomever throws them crumbs from someone elses pie, they are generally to stupid and lazy to have ever known the satisfaction of standing on their own two feet and making their own way in life, and, worst of all, a large percentage of them have reproduced.
 
Yea, the helmet is that's the only thing I find odd too.

Well the helmet and how did she have the kid in her lap? I mean with my fathers Scag there is no way I could operate it with someone in my lap--the steering bars wouldn't be able to be operated.
 
I do not get how some are so concerned about the way others are raising their kids. If she wants to teach the kid how to mow the yard, let her. Everyone nowadays thinks that they know what is better for a kid than their own parents. Yes, there are instances that this may be true, but most of the time it is a nosy neighbor, passer by, or Johnny do good that is in the wrong and does not know what is good for the kid, but they just have to put their two cents into the pot.

My old landlords 8 year old kid mowed the yard on his ZTR better than I could, because he had been mowing with dad for years. He always wanted to drive or ride on my tractors when I was there, or drive my vehicles around the place. There are too many kids today that go to drivers education class that have never driven anything in their lives.

I do not have kids yet, but I am sure that within a few years I will, and you can bet that they will learn how to ride on something safely, drive safely, shoot guns safely, etc before others think they should be.

There is currently a case in Montgomery County MD that two parents are in trouble because their 10 year old and 8 year old kids were at the park, three blocks away from the house, by themselves. The kids knew how to take care of themselves, but the nosy neighbor called the cops on the kids, causing a huge legal battle now between the parents, the cops, and child protective services. The last time the kids were picked up at the park, the cops would not let them call their parents, instead took them on a three hour ride around, and did not contact their parents until almost four hours after they were picked up.
 

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