Safety NL has renewed its calls for practical training for offroad vehicles in the wake of a fatal side-by-side crash in central earlier this week.
A young person was killed after losing control of the machine on the Newfoundland T’Railway near Gander on Monday.
A passenger, who was also under the age of 16, was sent to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Currently, there is no hands-on training required to operate an off-road vehicle for recreation, and Safety NL is calling on the government to change that.
President Sean Kelly says while training can’t prevent all accidents, it may help to prevent the number of tragic incidents in the province.
He’s calling for the government to bring in a pilot project to address some of the major issues and come up with a plan to address them, eventually leading to mandatory training across the province.
Another thing to take into account, says Kelly, is the number of young people operating offroad vehicles.
Statistics from the Canadian Pediatric Society found young people make up 12 to 15 per cent of ATV riders in Canada but account for 27 to 33 per cent of all fatalities.
Between 2012 and 2022, 6,452 children and teens were hospitalized and 230 died as a result of injuries from ATV accidents. Of those fatalities, 54 per cent were between the ages of 15 and 19. Thirty-seven children under the age of nine were killed, ten of whom were driving the machine at the time of the accident.
