Trauma specialists at Montreal Kids’s Hospital (MCH) are sounding the alarm in regards to the risks of all-terrain automobiles (ATVs) after an evaluation confirmed a 50 per cent leap in accidents in 2025 in comparison with the earlier decade.
In response to MCH information, in 2025, about 40 per cent of ATV-related accidents seen on the MCH Trauma Centre had been severe and required hospitalization.
On the MCH centre, ATV-related circumstances embrace traumatic mind accidents, spinal trauma, chest, belly and pelvic trauma, facial/dental trauma and limb fractures.
Debbie Friedman, director of the Trauma and Canadian Hospital Harm Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) at MCH and McGill College professor, mentioned that the circumstances weren’t restricted to rural areas.
About 70 per cent of the circumstances on the centre had been from Larger Montreal and surrounding areas.
“ATVs are merely not toys — and they aren’t secure to be pushed by kids and younger teenagers,” Friedman mentioned. “There are particular legal guidelines in place associated to ATV use that should be adopted and we wish to be sure that the general public is conscious.”
In response to Quebec regulation, helmets, gloves and protecting gear are required whereas working an ATV. Riders have to be a minimum of 16 years outdated.
“Whereas Quebec’s regulatory framework gives clear minimal requirements for ATV use on public roads and trails, consciousness and software of those guidelines appear to stay inconsistent in observe,” the MCH assertion mentioned.
Greater than three-quarters of the accidents had been in teenagers aged between 12 and 18, with the youngest being two-years-old.
Almost two-thirds of sufferers weren’t carrying a helmet after they obtained injured.
In February 2025, the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) issued a statement strongly advising that kids below 16 shouldn’t function or experience as passengers on ATVs.
Liane Fransblow, damage prevention coordinator on the MCH Trauma Centre, echoed these suggestions.
“ATVs are highly effective, heavy machines that require grownup power and judgment to deal with safely,” Fransblow mentioned. “Kids and youths are merely not prepared for that duty. We see the preventable devastating penalties all too usually.”
MCH recommends the next to stop accidents:
- Given the danger of significant damage, maintain kids and adolescents below 16 off ATVs, together with for leisure use on non-public land.
- Guarantee helmets are correctly fitted and worn always.
- Observe Quebec coaching necessities for older teenagers working ATVs, recognizing that authorized compliance doesn’t get rid of the danger of significant damage.
- By no means drive impaired, it heightens the danger of damage.
“We should change the notion that these automobiles are innocent enjoyable for kids,” Friedman added,“The dangers of significant damage are simply too excessive.”
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