OPP sounding the alarm over snowmobile deaths

Ontario Provincial Police are sounding the alarm over the number of deaths in snowmobile accidents this winter.

Eighteen people have died so far this season.

That's approaching the 22 or 23 deaths that occurred in 2008 and 2009, according toOPP deputy commissioner Brad Blair.

Many of those riders died after falling through ice.

Blair told CBChe's concerned thatbasic safety messages still aren't getting through to people.

"It used to be a lot of young people, so we'd say, 'Well, they're young. They like to take risks. They like to ride fast.' But when it's people in their 50s and 60s? I'm at a loss to understand what they're missing," Blair said.

This past Tuesday and Sunday, OPP divers recovered the bodies of two men who went through the ice on Lake Nipigon.

Forty-five-year-old Nathaniel Thompson and 51-year-oldGerald Thompson were among five people who died in accidents across the province last week alone.

Blair balked at the suggestion that Ontario's unseasonably warm winter was contributing to the fatalities.

"That's a conversation I don't accept," he said.

"This is about people making the right choices. When they're told 'stay off the lakes,' and they go on the lakes, and they end up in the water and sadly succumb to either hypothermia or drowning, then that's something that's preventable."

Basic rules around snowmobile safety include "Don't go on areas that are not groomed and that have not been marked for safe passage," Blair said.

"This is repeating itself over and over again, and it's very frustrating to us," he said.