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Legislation that would make it mandatory for all-terrain vehicle users to wear helmets has hit some snags, admits Alberta’s transportation minister.

Minister Luke Ouellette promised to introduce the new law by fall 2008 or spring 2009 but nearly two years later nothing has materialized and there are no plans reveal legislation anytime soon.

The problem has been finding ways to give this law some teeth, Ouellette said.

“It’s taken this long because … we need to find a way to enforce this with people on private land. We don’t have jurisdiction there,” he said.

“We are thinking it might go a lot farther if we could educate people using machines on private and public properties about safety than it would to create a law saying people have to wear a helmet.”

The province is switching gears while it finds the answers needed to police helmet legislation but it will eventually crack down on off highway vehicle users, Ouellette said.

“I just don’t want a gun held to my head saying I have to get this done by a certain date.”

The province sent out letters to municipalities last month, about potential changes to the Traffic Safety Act that would address the authority of councils to make bylaws regulating helmet use for off-highway vehicles. According to the letter there are “several municipalities (that) have addressed this issue” and need to repeal those bylaws to make way for a standard, provincewide initiative.

This community hasn’t ever put such a rule into effect, since the province usually takes responsibility for “things like that,” said Luana Smith, legislative services.

She said she was surprised to learn the province hasn’t already made helmets mandatory.

So is Chris Brookes, executive director for the Alberta Snowmobile Association.

He has been lobbying for changes for over a decade and is getting frustrated with the wait.

Alberta and British Columbia are the only two provinces that don’t require people driving snowmobiles, quads and other similar vehicles, to wear helmets.

“The snowmobile, ATV, motorbike community have all been working with the government these past few years to get something done but we can’t seem to get government to follow through,” he said. There’s no question how important head protection is for riders, Brookes said.

Last January, a five-year-old girl was killed while she was out snowmobiling with her dad near Sherwood Park, Alta. The driver lost control and crashed into a tree. Neither was wearing a helmet.

The fatal incident happened on private property – which is beyond government reach even if there was legislation - but it hammers on the point that a “helmet could greatly improve your changes of survival,” Brookes said.

Statistics from the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research show that of 100 Albertans who died while riding ATVs between 2002 and 2008, 64 per cent were not wearing helmets.