Injuries related to off-road vehicles in Canada
Introduction
Off-road vehicles (ORVs) including all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), snowmobiles, and dirt bikes are popular in Canada for recreational and work-related use. ATVs were initially designed for farm work or as a means of transportation for people living in remote areas. Snowmobiles are land vehicles designed for travel on snow. Dirt bikes are lightweight motorcycles designed for use on unpaved roads, dirt roads or trails.
While ORVs typically come with a variety of safety warnings, when compared with automobiles, there is little legislation concerning licensing, safety education and minimum age (Yanchar, 2013). There is no specific evidence to suggest why ORVs should be less regulated, compared to, for example, automobiles. However, ORV users are typically left to their own devices when determining the location and conditions under which the machine is used. Of particular concern, many of these ORVs are advertised as toys, which may encourage their use by children and teens under 18 years of age while simultaneously underemphasizing the need to consider safety when operating these vehicles. In this paper the term “ORVs” is used to denote all motorized vehicles intended for use off of public roadways such as ATVs, snowmobiles, and dirt bikes.
Males are more likely than females to sustain ORV-related injuries. There is some evidence to suggest that this is an exposure issue that can be partially explained by more males using ORVs than females (Mayercik et al., 2012, Lord et al., 2010, Balthrop et al., 2009, Krauss et al., 2010). The problem of ATV-related injuries in children is of growing concern, especially since children aged 15 and under are overrepresented in terms of the number injured compared to the number operating ATVs (Yanchar, 2013, Mayercik et al., 2012, Lord et al., 2010, Balthrop et al., 2009).
Fractures are a common injury among ATV crash victims (Balthrop et al., 2009). In particular, trauma to the head and/or brain is present in one-third of cases involving children. For adults, instances of head and/or brain trauma are almost as frequent as abdominal/chest trauma. Among children injured in ATV-related crashes, nearly 25% experience trauma to the abdomen and chest (Brown et al., 2002). Blunt force trauma includes crush injuries which occur when an ATV rolls on top of a person. Since ATVs can weigh up to 270 kg, these types of injuries are often very serious.
Musculoskeletal injuries including extremity fractures, most commonly associated with snowmobile crashes, are present in almost two-thirds of snowmobile crash victims in Canada (CIHI, 2007). A five-year study in Manitoba found closed head injuries (concussions, intracranial hematoma, etc.) in 13% of injured riders, while a Swedish study reported such injuries in almost half of all fatally injured riders (Stewart and Black, 2004, Öström and Eriksson, 2002). Blunt force trauma to the head, chest, and drowning are the principal causes of fatal injury in snowmobile crashes.
Information on dirt bike-related injuries is limited, as very few studies focus their attention on this type of vehicle. Of the limited information available, most of the studies focus on children and/or teens. Dirt bike use takes place in a variety of different settings. Official motocross racers are required to wear safety gear including a helmet, goggles, a chest guard, a kidney belt, trousers, boots, gauntlets, a vest, knee pads, and a knee brace. Non-competitive dirt bike riders may be less likely to wear this much safety equipment, thereby exposing themselves to a higher risk of internal, musculoskeletal, and blunt force injury. Extremity fractures are the most common type of injury (PHAC, 2012). In particular, lower body fractures and damage to ligaments in the knee and ankle often result from riders using one leg as a pivot point when negotiating sharp turns.
Alcohol use prior to the injurious ATV crash was common among adults, noted in about half of the cases reported (Mayercik et al., 2012, Lord et al., 2010, Krauss et al., 2010). A substantial majority of injured snowmobile riders had been drinking prior to their crash, and among these operators, most had BACs over the legal limit (Stewart and Black, 2004, Öström and Eriksson, 2002). Victims of dirt bike-related crashes are rarely tested for alcohol or illegal drug consumption. As such, there is limited information about the extent to which these factors influence crash rates and crash severity.
Section snippets
Objectives
Effective preventative measures and protective policy to increase the safety of users of ORVs must be founded on data reflecting the types of crashes and kinds of injuries that victims of ORV collisions typically experience. Thus, the objective of this paper is to provide a perspicuous representation of the public health issue presented by the popular use of ORVs in Canada. In addition to corroborating the results of previous studies (from Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Australia),
TIRF databases
This examination involved the analysis of data on ORV users contained in two databases managed by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF). The Fatality Database includes information on persons fatally injured in on- and off-road collisions in Canada from both coroners/medical examiners files and police collision reports. The Serious Injury Database includes information on seriously injured persons in Canada and is based on police- reported data. A more detailed description of the
Trends in fatalities and serious injuries
Fig. 1 shows the number of ORV users in Canada killed annually between 1990 and 2010, by vehicle type. According to TIRF’s national Fatality Database and Serious Injury Database, there has been a 19.8% reduction in the number of snowmobilers killed (from 86 to 69); however the number of Canadians killed in ATV or dirt bike crashes has increased (128.9% increase, from 45 to 103).
In Fig. 2, ORV user fatalities from 1990 to 2010 are presented as a rate per 100,000 population (all ages, source
Overall results
A general upward trend in the absolute number and rates of ATV and dirt bike fatalities and serious injuries has emerged between 1990 and 2010. However, the opposite seems to be the case for snowmobiles within the same time frame. By contrast, the rate of highway vehicle (HV) fatalities and serious injuries per population decreased by 53% and 46% respectively during the same time period. This suggests that the growing popularity of ATVs and dirt bikes as a form of entertainment has perhaps not
Conclusion
The use of ORVs can be dangerous, as reflected by the fatality and serious injury data described in this paper. Of great concern, alcohol seems to be an important factor that contributes to this problem. Also, the data suggest that youth under the age of 16 are prone to serious injuries when driving ORVs or riding along as passengers. While some progress has been made with respect to snowmobiles, the same is not true of ATVs and dirt bikes as evidenced by an increasing fatality rate. Changing
Acknowledgements
This research has been made possible with funding from the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The data from TIRF’s Fatality Database and Serious Injury Database used for the analyses in this research has been collected with financial support from the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) and Transport Canada.
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