CAMROSE, Alta. – The most dangerous area of snowmobiling is inside the driver’s head, say enthusiasts Leonard Schultz and Park Rayfuse.
“Some of them get going too damned fast,” said Rayfuse before a meeting of the Camrose snowmobile club. “When you’re going through bush, you just can’t go wide open.”
Schultz said snowmobiles today are more dangerous than in the past because they have more powerful engines.
So far this winter five snowmobilers in Alberta have died in accidents. The yearly average is three.
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“I expect to see more,” said Schultz, pointing out that the number of snowmobilers in Alberta is rapidly increasing.
Rayfuse and Schultz, with their earnest discussion of safety, seem a good sign of snowmobiling responsibility and sense. But RCMP snowmobile safety expert Steve MacDonald says it isn’t these people he worries about.
“It’s a real responsibility issue,” said MacDonald. “People have to grow up and realize that when they get on a snowmobile they have to take responsibility.”
He said most snowmobilers are careful, but nothing forces anyone to join clubs or think about safety. It’s the snowmobilers who aren’t at meetings like the one in Camrose that cause the safety issue.
And, like Rayfuse and Schultz, he blames safety problems on some peoples’ thinking.
“It’s that invincible attitude,” MacDonald said. Most snowmobilers get on their machines in a playful, carefree mood, and some don’t pay attention to what they are doing. That can lead to high-speed recklessness.
“You don’t go across a field at 1 a.m. at 85 miles per hour and expect everything to be OK,” MacDonald said.
Alcohol is an associated problem with high-speed night driving, he added. Because snowmobiling is seen as recreation, and many see drinking as a recreational activity, the two can be mixed – with deadly consequences.
Drinking, driving don’t mix
“You can’t drink when you’re operating these things,” said MacDonald. “There’s this mentality where people go out, sit around a fire and pass a bottle around. When you start mixing that stuff, it’s an extremely dangerous mix.”
Rayfuse and Schultz think snowmobilers shouldn’t touch alcohol before they get on their machines.
“Save it for home or the hotel,” said Schultz.
An easy answer for both dangerous and impaired driving is to have police crack down hard on offenders.
But MacDonald said it is virtually impossible to do.
Police can’t afford to drastically increase their snowmobile patrols, and even if they did, it’s hard to tell where snowmobilers will be since they don’t stick to the roads.
MacDonald said many police have had the exasperating experience of trying to stop snowmobilers they see along the highway.
“Sometimes they just wave and take off,” said MacDonald.
That leaves safety with the snowmobilers.
“It doesn’t matter what we do, it doesn’t matter what legislation we have, the buck stops with snowmobile owners.”
