Sweeping changes and suggestions are being recommended to strengthen road safety and reduce motor vehicle collisions in the Yukon.

The seven recommendations are contained in a 48-page report released Wednesday.

They range from increasing the minimum age for young drivers from 15 to 16, increasing enforcement with options like photo radar, and making more of an effort to catch impaired drivers.

Dr. Brendan Hanley, the Yukon’s chief medical officer of health, released the report, titled Motor Vehicles in Yukon: A Public Health Perspective.

The document is largely a statistical review of collisions over several years analyzing deaths and injuries and who was involved – ages, gender.

While there are more collisions in December and January, it says, collisions with the most serious injuries tend to occur in July.

It notes the rate of impaired driving in the Yukon is the second-worst in Canada behind the N.W.T., and how there are regularly drivers on Yukon roads who have consumed alcohol, smoked pot or taken other drugs.

“Motor vehicle collisions are one of the leading causes of avoidable death and injury in Yukon,” Hanley said in a statement released with the report.

“It is my hope that this report will be the start of an important conversation about reducing the motor vehicle collision injuries in our territory.”

While the Yukon has some of the highest reported alcohol and drug impaired driving rates in the country, the report notes, inattentive and distracted driving was the most common cause of collisions between 2011 and 2017.

Injuries caused by distracted drivers also resulted in some of the most severe injuries, says the report.

“In 2016, motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) were responsible for almost 10 per cent of injury and trauma-related emergency department visits in Yukon and almost 16 per cent of injury and trauma-related hospitalizations,” says the report.

Between 2011 and 2015, excessive speed or driving over the speed limit contributed to 36 per cent of fatalities on Yukon roads, says the report.

It says research has demonstrated that drivers are more likely to exceed the speed limit on rural roads compared to urban roads.

Between 2011 and 2015, the report says, 822 days in hospital stays were related to MVCs.

Most of the 17 deaths between 2011 and 2017 occurred on the Alaska Highway.

While the age group of 70 years and older represented the fewest injured by collisions, their injuries tended to be more severe.

Youth between 15 and 24 represented the most emergency room visits because of collisions.

“Overall, Yukon has a relatively high overall risk of MVC injuries and fatalities, and after adjusting for the number of licensed drivers in the population, has the second-highest rate of injuries,” says the report.

“Males represented over 70 per cent of the deaths on-road and 100 per cent of the off-road deaths (e.g., snowmobiles, ATVs) in Yukon between 2011 and 2015,” says the report.

“The highest number of MVC deaths in Yukon between 2011 and 2015 took place among the 51- to 65-year-old age group.

Other age groups that had a relatively elevated number of deaths were those under 21 and those 36 to 50 years old.”

Motorcycles were involved in 13.1 per cent of emergency department visits and 18.1 per cent of hospital admissions, but represented only 1.1 per cent of vehicles involved in reported collisions.

The seven primary, overarching recommendations to reduce collisions each contain several specific recommendations and suggestions.

A sample of the many specific recommendations include:

• As rural and remote drivers are more likely to be involved in MVCs, more should be learned about MVCs on rural and remote roads to determine methods of prevention;

• Automated speed enforcement can assist with the minimal resources available for enforcement across a large geographic area. This could include photo radar, red light cameras and turn cameras installed at intersections;

• The government should consider the use of automatic collision notification response technology, to assist in earlier discovery and triaging of MVC victims on remote highways, such as with the partnership between OnStar and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Increase the minimum age to enter the Graduated Licensing Program (GLP) to 16 years of age; set a minimum of two GLP stages lasting 12 and 24 months respectively; and subject GLP drivers to a nighttime driving ban. Extend the zero-tolerance for alcohol and drug use for a minimum of three years beyond the GLP.

• Consideration should be given to a driver education program as part of the regular school curriculum;

• Implement a three-day administrative licence suspension for blood-alcohol content of between 0.05 and 0.08, along with a mandatory or discretionary impound of the vehicle. Suspensions and impoundments should be greater for the second offence;

• Drivers convicted of impaired driving should be required to have on onboard alcohol interlock device in their vehicles for at least six months before the return of their regular licence;

• As a roadside survey indicated one of the reasons drivers choose to drive after drinking is because they’re afraid of leaving their car behind for security reasons, consideration should be given to fully-lit parking lots with security cameras.

• Develop and implement a long-term road safety strategy for Yukon, based on multi-sectoral partnerships, that accepts shared responsibility for road safety between road users and providers of the road system.

“The aim of this report was to provide a picture of what we know about MVCs and their associated injuries in Yukon, using the data available,” says the report.

“This is intended to be the beginning of a larger conversation about how to reduce the impact of MVCs on Yukoners moving forward.”