Northern communities cautioning people about ATV use

In every northern community, people rely on all-terrain vehicles to get around butin an effort to avoid more all-terrain vehicle accidents, some leaders are calling for a renewed emphasis on safety.

That's particularly true where young ATV users are concerned.

"So far, we've been lucky," said Ross Potter, director of protective services for the town of Hay River. He says he has heard of only one accident so far where someone has been treated in hospital.

Potter says he has seen kids as young as 10 or 12 years of age riding machines unattended by adults. In some cases, the machines are far too large and powerful for the young people to control.

"The biggest thing is for parents to train their kids properly on how to ride these thingsand to supervise some of the riding by underage individuals," said Potter.

He says that in his experience, young people are more likely to drive more dangerously when unattended by adults.

"We've had a couple of close calls where the kids come up out of the ditch with their machines, they don't stop, they don't look. One of these days somebody's going to get hit."

Next month, there will be two sad first anniversaries in the Northwest Territoriesfor people who died as a result of ATV accidents,one in Colville Lake and one in Inuvik.

Late night noise

Behchok is experiencing many of the same issues with ATV drivers as Hay River.

"Some of the people operating these ATVs are very young," said Chief Clifford Daniels. "Some of them are not being monitored by responsible guardians or parents."

Daniels says he has received many complaints about people roaring around on ATVs very late at night. In the summer, most people sleep with their windows open. Daniels said people are telling him the late night and early morning ATV activity is costing people a lot of sleep.

It's not just the noise he's concerned about, though.

"We haven't had any major incidents on ATVs this year," said Daniels. "We want to maintain that and let the parents be aware they shouldn't have ATVs running around late at night, especially."

Daniels said the community has a noise bylaw and requires ATV users to wear helmetsbut it has no bylaw officer. Instead, he's turning to the RCMP for help keeping ATV users safe, as well as the people they share community streets and paths with.