The Saskatchewan All Terrain Vehicle Association is calling for more regulation when it comes to ATVs in the province. They argue that there needs to be some kind of safety training to prevent injuries and deaths on the vehicles. They have a point, there have been over 1,000 hospital admissions due to ATV injuries since 2009, and eight ATV-related deaths in Saskatchewan this year. The current lack of regulation is not working, so some kind of safety course should be considered.
The problem is how we actually approach this in Saskatchewan, where the ATV has become a fairly integrated part of a lot of farms and businesses. Introducing a new set of regulations and training requirements would require an implementation that takes into account just how many people would require it. There could be programs through schools for new drivers, of course, but we are dealing with a province that does make heavy use of the machines, so we would have to plan the implementation of any safety programming very carefully just to ensure that people are not overwhelmed. Once the programs are put in place, it will be easy to reach all of the potential drivers, look at boat safety and drivers education programs for examples of that. However, there are thousands of current users who would not be reached by those programs, and requiring them to take a safety program would overwhelm any planned programs that are in place.
There is also the matter of enforcement, mainly because of the way they are used for many people in the province. Most are used as a supplementary vehicle on private property, where people are more prone to be lax on safety regulations and better able to skirt registration requirements. They are also used as a low-speed alternative for people who are not old enough to drive or otherwise unable to get a driver’s license to get around. Any regulations would need to keep in mind this usage, and consider that they are lower speed and not commonly allowed on public roads anyway. This also would have to be reflected in the content of any safety course.
This is not saying that increased regulations or safety courses are not a good idea, of course, the number of people who are injured each year are a reminder that this is something which we need to keep in mind in the province. But, if we want the regulations to work, we need to implement them in a way that keeps in mind how the machines are actually used in the province, and actually reaches the people who are most likely to need to learn about how to ride safely. Saying we need regulations is accurate, but actually putting any such regulations into practice is surprisingly tricky.
