Riders who learned to hang off the three-wheelers in corners and lean them could achieve some genuinely impressive lap times on motocross circuits, and three-wheeler racing was a wildly popular sport in the 1970s and early 1980s as a result. The story for experienced riders was quite different. This led to a slew of accidents, particularly among newer riders, and three-wheelers developed a reputation for broken bones and ER visits as a result.
What happens when you try to turn a three-wheeler at speed is that the front wheel tries to turn while the rest of the bike tries to go straight ahead. The reason these harmless-looking little bikes were so dangerous becomes apparent as soon as you ride one, particularly when you attempt a turn.ĭue to the fact they only have one front wheel the bikes don’t have the stability that quads do, and unlike regular two-wheeled motorcyles you can’t lean a three-wheeler through the corners.Ībove Image: The Honda ATC70 used balloon tires instead of suspension, and a simple single-cylinder engine slung under the pressed steel frame. Although the Honda ATC70 and its siblings in the ATC model family looked almost comically harmless, they were deemed responsible for nearly 7,000 injuries per month, and hundreds of deaths in the United States at the peak of their popularity.īy the mid-1980s the US Government was on the verge of banning all three-wheelers and the Consumer Product Safety Commission financed an unprecedented $100 million campaign to purchase all unsold three-wheeled ATVs from dealers’ inventories and have them destroyed.
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