Girl, 11, killed after her off-road vehicle overturns on Placer County property

An 11-year-old girl died Sunday evening after the off-highway vehicle she was driving rolled over on private property in unincorporated Placer County, the California Highway Patrol said.

Officers from CHP’s Auburn office responded about 5:45 p.m. to a crash on Red Feather Circle in the Applegate area. A preliminary investigation found that the Kawasaki Mule, operated by the girl with an adult male passenger, overturned onto its driver’s side for unknown reasons. The girl was partially ejected, officers said.

Despite lifesaving efforts, she was pronounced dead at the scene. The passenger suffered minor injuries, CHP said.

The girl’s name was not released because she was a minor, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the coroner’s division.

The crash remains under investigation, the CHP said.

Off-highway vehicles remain a significant safety hazard for children in the United States, with federal data showing hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries each year.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 288 children under age 16 died in crashes involving off-highway vehicles between 2018 and 2020. Of those, 127 were under the age of 12. In 2020 alone, the most recent year with complete fatality data, 123 children under 16 were killed — representing 12% of all OHV-related deaths reported that year.

During the five-year period from 2018 to 2022, an estimated 137,300 children under 16 were treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries involving off-highway vehicles. Children under 12 accounted for nearly half of those cases. Annually, children under 16 made up 27% of the more than 500,000 total OHV-related injuries.

The CPSC reported that most of these deaths and injuries involve rollovers or collisions, with victims often ejected from the vehicle.