Fort Assiniboine students learn about the safe use of OHVs

The Alberta Snowmobile Association (ASA) is hoping to make students safer one school at a time.

On Wednesday, Nov. 18 Lori Zacaruk, from the Alberta Snowmobile Association and Zacstracs Avalanche Skills Training (one of the sponsors of the program), visited Fort Assiniboine School to present their Ride With Respect safety program for all the students.

The ASA is a non-profit volunteer organization founded in 1971 and is made up of many clubs throughout the province that actively work to improve snowmobiling and off highway vehicle safety (OHV).

Ride With Respect is a free program that the ASA, along with the Canadian Avalanche Centre, makes available every year to schools across Alberta.

The group is on the road for six months, from early to mid October to the middle of March, teaching school aged children from Kindergarten up to Grade 12 about safe snowmobile and OHV practices.

Zacaruck said by the end of the year she will have visited over 50 schools and will have spoke to about 12,000 students.

“We tailor the presentation to the age group. For this age group we keep the message pretty simple,” she said. When the Leader visited, Zacaruk was giving a presentation to the school’s Grade 1 to 4 students. “Making sure riders have and know how to use the proper safety equipment, only riding when they are under the supervision of a responsible adult and only having one person riding at a time. Most OHVs are only designed for one rider so as we say one seat, one rider.”

Over the 15 years that Zacaruk has been giving the presentations, she said the students have grown more receptive to the need to ride safely and responsibly.

“Kids are much more responsible now than they were 10 years ago. There is more of an emphasis on safety in their general life and they are carrying that attitude into the sport,” she said, adding that still doesn’t mean the presentations are no longer necessary. “Unfortunately, every year in Alberta young people are involved in ATV accidents that are easily avoided.”

Zacaruk related the story of a young girl whose face was severely scarred after driving into a barbwire fence. Her father had asked if she wanted to help check the cows that were pastured in a field that required an ATV to get to. Anxious to do so, she ran to get her helmet.

“But she couldn’t find her helmet so instead she picked up her mother’s helmet, instead of taking the time to get her own because she didn’t want to be left behind,” she said, adding the girl thought one helmet was as good as another.

However, the helmet didn’t fit her well and it came off, even though the girl thought it was strapped on properly.

“The girl then ended up driving into a barbwire fence and severely gouged her face which will never heal properly. Do you think she can take that back?” Zacaruk asked, adding that is why it is important to make sure to wear the proper safety equipment and that it fits properly. “You can never take accidents back.”

For the older students, especially at the high school level, the Ride With Respect session deals about the decisions and factors that create an accident.

“Usually it’s not just one thing that leads to an accident, there are a number of contributors,” she said, giving the example of it’s not just speed which cause the quad to flip, it’s speed with poor traction. “You have to have more than one thing go wrong before it cascades in to an accident. We want to help students realize that there are a lot of things in their control and if they are able to control what they can control the accident will not culminate or it won’t be as severe.”