He and eight other boys from around the nation are suing retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which sold the bikes, and a San Rafael company that imported them from China. A trial in the case begins Monday in a Marin County courtroom, and the youths are expected to testify about smashing their faces into pavement after the front wheels came loose.
The lawsuit asserts that the so-called quick-release devices on the front wheels malfunctioned when the bikes hit bumps. The clasps, used on millions of bicycles, are designed to hold the front-wheel axle to the frame and allow the wheel to be easily removed for repairs or transport.
The boys and their parents also claim that Wal-Mart conspired with Dynacraft BSC Inc. of San Rafael and Carl Warren & Co., which investigated complaints for the importer, to cover up the defects.
Nine kids fell off of their bikes, and it’s the fault of the bikes….although millions have been sold and none have been recalled or otherwise cited officially for safety concerns.
When I was a child, we used to take our old Kent bikes down the side of a freeway embankment past some electrical transmission towers at high rates of speed. I’d like to think it was skill, but it was probably also a large amount of luck that kept me from serious injury. But assuming I had come to harm, in the early 1980s and even though we were poor, we wouldn’t have sued for recompense. What a pity, as it offered such lucrative targets:
- The Federal government, for building overpasses where children had access to the steep embankments.
- Kent, for making bicycles without frictional inertial dampening systems that limited us to sissy speeds.
- The power company, for not putting bumpers on the legs of its transmission towers.
- The City of Milwaukee, for not replacing dirt and grass with a comfortable poly-foam of some sort.
The lead plantiff in this case says he cannot absorb information like he used to. Hell, I don’t absorb information like I used to, either. But, on the bright side for this young man, he’s certainly absorbing the litigious lotto lessons of his environment well enough.
