Mayor Scott Jablow has repeatedly described his proposed ordinance to ban OHVs from Sedona city streets as a safety measure necessitated by the fact that OHVs are inherently dangerous, and has argued that preemptive action is the only way to ensure they don’t kill someone in Sedona.
The City Council’s information packet for the May 23 discussion of the ordinance included a copy of the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s November 2021 report on deaths resulting from OHV use. The CPSC’s report stated that there were a total of 2,211 OHV-related deaths over a three-year period from 2016 to 2018, declining from 763 in the first year of the assessment to 699 in the last year, for an average of 737 OHV-related deaths per year.
The U.S. Forest Service has found that at least 30 million people ride OHVs each year. According to the National Safety Council, the lifetime risk of death can be calculated by dividing the number of individuals involved in an activity, or the total population, by the number of deaths resulting from that activity and then by the U.S. life expectancy of 76.1.
Using the CPSC’s finding of an average of 737 deaths per year gives an annual death risk of 1 in 40,706 for OHV riders, or lifetime odds of 1 in 535.
For the general population, the lifetime risk is 1 in 5,919.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reported 42,795 vehicle deaths in 2022. According to the NSC, the lifetime risk of dying in a motor vehicle crash is 1 in 93 — per the proposed ordinance, OHVs are not motor vehicles.
That makes OHVs almost six times safer than road-certified cars.
To express it another way, if on-road vehicles were as unsafe as off-road vehicles, the number of vehicular deaths each year would fall by about 35,000.
The CPSC report also listed a total of 59 OHV-related deaths in Arizona from 2016 through 2018, or an average of 20 per year. That works out to one OHV death per 357,575 Arizonans.
Motor vehicle deaths in Arizona totaled 952 in 2016, 1,000 in 2017 and 1,010 in 2018, for an average of 987 per year or one per 7,245 Arizonans. By this measurement, road-safe motor vehicles are approximately 50 times more deadly than unsafe OHVs in Arizona.
In addition, the NSC reported 5,932 motorcycle-related deaths in 2021, for a lifetime risk of motorcycle-related death of 1 in 735.
Lifetime risks of death associated with other common activities, as published by the NSC or calculated based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, include:
- Obesity: 1 in 8.7
- Tobacco use: 1 in 10
- Alcohol consumption: 1 in 31
- Opioid poisoning: 1 in 58
- Accidental falls: 1 in 98
- Assault by firearm: 1 in 208
- Pollution derived from livestock rearing, chemical fertilizers, tilling and commercial cooking: 1 in 230
- Sexually transmitted diseases: 1 in 311
- Pollution resulting from electricity generation: 1 in 428
- Pollution resulting from residential cooking and heating: 1 in 507
- Complications of medical care: 1 in 721
- On-the-job injury: 1 in 840
- Drowning: 1 in 1,087
There are no proposed ordinances to ban high-calorie foods, sedentism, tobacco, alcohol, opioids, furniture and stepladders, firearms possession, motor vehicles, livestock rearing and restaurants, sex, cooking, electricity, medical facilities, employment or swimming pools, although all of these activities involve a higher lifetime risk of death, or a comparable risk, to driving an OHV.
In addition, the CPSC’s estimate of annual OHV injuries is 105,400. The University of Illinois Chicago has found that approximately 250,000 people are injured by police officers each year, with 85,000 of those requiring hospitalization from those injuries. That puts the annual risk of injury by police officers at 1 in 1,328 and the lifetime risk at 1 in 17.4, which are significantly greater than the odds of dying in an OHV.
