Evaluating the injury risk associated with All-Terrain Vehicles: An application of Bayes' rule

This article discusses several technical and conceptual issues relating to the regulation of All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). Qualitative response models are used to analyze a survey of injured persons and a survey of the general population of users. Because the latter did not distinguish injured and noninjured persons, an application of Bayes' rule is used to make inferences about the relationship between the two injury categories, and to consistently estimate injury risk. The article concludes with a discussion of the problem of risk awareness and some policy implications.This article is based on work done while Professor Rubinfeld was a consultant to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The authors wish to thank the CPSC for its support, Steven Shavell for his encouragement, and Paul Ruud for his econometric advice and assistance. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not of the CPSC.