“With driving comes great responsibility.”
These words were recently spoken by local paramedic Carrie Heffernan who helped to organize the Friday, May 13 staged collision scenario behind the local schools to demonstrate to high school students the potential results of driving impaired or distracted.
The mock crash scene, which featured members of the high school's drama club playing the roles of victims, witnesses and offender, was mainly geared towards motor vehicles collisions.
But the lesson nevertheless carries over to the use of off-highway vehicles.
For obvious reasons, the West Country is a highly popular area for off-road enthusiasts.
Sadly, emergency responders are no strangers to attending the scenes of crashed quads.
Over the May long weekend, the Sundre RCMP attended a fatal rollover of a side-by-side with a roll cage in Clearwater County. The crash claimed the life of the driver, from Blackfalds, and injured the passenger, from Red Deer.
On Tuesday, May 24, STARS was dispatched west of Bergen for another rollover, although no one perished in that crash.
Operating off-highway vehicles impaired is obviously illegal. But even stone cold sober, anyone operating such a machine should stay within his or her limits.
Sponsored professionals who appear in videos launching quads through the air are just that — professionals. For them it's a full-time job not a fun activity to pass the time over the weekend. And even these adrenaline junkies are not immune to accidents.
So recreational users who only get a chance to ride occasionally as a hobby need to not only know what their machine is capable of but also whether they can operate it safely at those limits.
As the old saying goes, one must learn to walk before he or she can learn to run.
Off-highway vehicle designs have come a long ways since the days of the treacherous trikes that rolled easily because of unstable balance, resulting in numerous fatalities. But speed combined with uneven terrain and a brief moment of panic can send even today's most safely designed models careening out of control.
This certainly is not an attempt to dissuade people from getting out in the West Country and going for a ride on a quad with friends and family. Many Canadians love the outdoors and who could possibly blame them. If anything, people should be encouraged to go out and enjoy our vast, breathtaking backyard, whether it be camping, hiking, biking, canoeing or quadding.
That said, anyone with little to no experience riding an off-highway vehicle — and perhaps even those who have ridden a few times — are encouraged to play within their limits, and to even consider taking lessons if they wish to push themselves to a new level.
— Simon Ducatel, editor
