We usually report motor vehicle accident (MVA) statistics and cases. Personal injury lawyers, particularly in rural areas, also need to be aware of off-road vehicle (ORV) injury trends, which includes snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles (ATV), dirt bikes and side-by-sides (SSV or SxS). The absence of insurance for many of these vehicles, operators and passengers suggests uncovered liability and high likelihood of tort cases.

Personal auto or home insurance does not cover ORV’s. Insurance rules for ORV’s vary widely by province:

  • In Alberta, ORV liability insurance is mandatory if the vehicle is taken on public land or roads.
  • In Ontario, there must be proof of insurance when driving off the owner’s property.
  • British Columbia and New Brunswick require $200,000 in liability coverage for bodily injury and property damage.
  • In Nova Scotia, anyone operating ORVs on land they do not own or occupy must carry a motor vehicle liability policy. Required coverage of at least $500,000 includes third-party liability, accidental benefits and under-insured or non-insured coverage.
  • Dirt bikes and dune buggies cannot be insured in many provinces.

As in an earlier article we wrote on e-bikes, minors are a disproportionally large share of ORV accident victims. The size of these vehicles, the speeds they can attain, and inexperienced drivers add up to serious risk. ATV’s can weigh more than 600 pounds and travel at more than 100 kilometres per hour, posing a serious risk to inexperienced riders and the people around them.

SickKids led a team of researchers from Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Over 900 physicians responded to the survey, reporting 181 cases of serious and/or fatal ATV-related injuries, including six deaths, over a 12-month period.

  • Most occurred during recreational activity (83%) or organized racing (4%).
  • Half of cases (48%) occurred in two summer months, July and August 2018, followed by the other warm May/June months (25%).
  • In most cases (59%) a child was the driver.
  • Children aged 10 to 14 represented nearly half (45%) of all cases, followed by youth aged 15 to 19 (26%) and kids aged 5 to 9 (22%).
  • Males were involved in 78% of cases.

The most common serious accident causes:

  • Loss of control, or because the driver was thrown out
  • Vehicle hitting an obstacle
  • Vehicle rollover
  • Vehicle hitting another vehicle/animal/person

The results also showed the rate of injuries varied according to provinces. Most pediatricians who reported cases of ATV-related injuries practiced in provinces without legislated safety training for children, including Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Of course, vigilance around ATV use should not be limited to youth. Reports from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) showed, in Ontario alone, 151 people died and more than 1,500 suffered ATV or SxS injuries between 2016 and 2022. Loss of control is the main cause of these accidents.

Also, the off-road recreational environment seems to suggest that normal rules don’t apply to ORV users. At least 40% of documented cases involve alcohol and/or drugs, almost twice the rate in MVA’s. A 2024 Ontario analysis showed a 125% increase in ATV-related fatalities in the past year, according to provincial data. The OPP reported one-third of these deaths involved alcohol and/or drugs, while more than half of the victims were not wearing helmets.

A 2018 CBC News report discovered that the number of deaths resulting from ATV and snowmobile accidents in Atlantic Canada surged in recent times. Most of the fatal crashes occurred between 6pm and 6am. Additionally, the report found 61% of the accidents happened on weekends or the holidays. At least 41% of the crashes involved alcohol, but investigators found that there is no accurate number being kept of impaired drivers in ATV/snowmobile crashes – not even the police are keeping accurate track. While these are fatality statistics, the injury statistics could presumably follow these patterns.

The Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), in a report sponsored by Desjardins Insurance, is calling for enhanced safety measures and education of ORV operators after deaths were found to have increased substantially between 2000 and 2021. The SickKids study revealed that the likelihood of injury and death on ATVs is lower in provinces where safety training is legislated for youth.

Other studies also show lower injury and death rates in provinces with legislated ATV safety training. Nova Scotia (the only Atlantic province requiring adults to take safety training before operating an ORV) had a death rate of five per 100,000. In New Brunswick and NL, however, the rates were eight per 100,000 and 11.5 per 100,000, respectively.