Our Mayor and Council were warned repeatedly that injury and death would occur from sanctioning (but not ratified in Council) an ATV trail in residential areas. Tom Urbaniak made his view very clear in this Cape Breton Post article "Municipality must step in to ban motorized vehicles from Coal Town Trail".

This report ( All-terrain vehicle serious injuries and death in children and youth ) by The pediatric association of Canada (also made available) says that "All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are a leading cause of serious injury in children and youth." which means visits to emergency rooms and deaths will increase in your community (and we see it constantly in the news). I couldn't find reference to parades being a leading cause of death and injury of youth but CBRM Mayor and Council has put proper consideration on that issue. Why the hypocrisy here?  Why is our current Mayor and Council supporting an activity that kills and bringing it into the heart of residential areas?

The public Facebook group for the Coal Town Trail is reporting an accident where an ATV left the trail and went down a steep embankment in the center of the community of Dominion. The post reports "I swerved to miss a deer last week behind the dominion forum and went down the embankment into a deep ditch.". This "can happen"* with a speed limit of 20km per hour in a residential area? What if it was a kid instead of a deer? What if it was someone walking their dogs on the trail? What if the ATV rider wasn't so lucky? These what-ifs will realize, it's just a matter of time according to statistics. The decision to allow motorized vehicles on a community trail will be the focal point.

The picture above was posted to the Coal Town Trail public Facebook group for all to see and reports the accident occurred in the heart of the community of Dominion where many children, seniors and others use the trail and frequent the area.

The residents clearly stated in a survey paid for by taxpayers, that they did not want motorized vehicles on what was supposed to be an Active Transportation trail (as approved by council). Converting the Active Transportation Trail (No Motors) to an ATV trail was never brought to council for approval. Now we have the first of what could be many accidents in our community because of a unilateral decision to allow motors on what was supposed to be an Active Transportation trail.

I expect an official comment from the Councilor and Mayor on this accident but none so far.

No harassment is intended by this article. It is simply meant as political commentary. The author has no issues with ATVs or the riders as reported by an elected official in the CB Post, that simply wasn't true. 

*added to be clearer. Not implying anything about the driver's speed.