When somebody tells you twice as many children are dying in Quebec as in Ontario, despite stricter regulations regarding ATV use by youths in Quebec, it's bound to make you question how effective a ban on youth riding ATVs could be.

This was the contention of Bob Ramsay of the Canadian ATV Distributors Council, a trade association that, among other things, promotes ATV use. In an October 2005 appearance on CBC Radio's Information Morning in Halifax, he said his researchers had found 14 deaths of young people in Quebec from 2002-04, and only six in Ontario, and this despite regulations that limited ATV use in Quebec to those 16 and over, while Ontario allowed 12-year-olds to ride.

The discussion was in the context of two recent deaths of teenage girls in Shubenacadie, N.S. In emotional times such as those, it makes sense to turn to whatever information is available to find ways to prevent similar accidents from happening. But statistics can be difficult, and in the case of ATV deaths in Ontario and Quebec, CBC reporter Jack Julian found them very tangled.

It starts with the way statistics are gathered. The two jurisdictions divide age groups differently. Ontario groups together ages 0-9, 10-19, 20-29; Quebec divides by ages 0-4, 5-14, 15-24.

Then there is context. Going back through 15 years of statistics, Quebec has always had a higher mortality rate for ATV riders across all age groups than Ontario, including the time before it enacted stricter regulations for youth in 1996.

What is being counted? Numbers in Ontario included all off-road vehicles, such as dirt bikes and dune buggies.

Finally there is the matter of who gathers the statistics. In Ontario it was the Ontario Provincial Police, and in Quebec the provincial coroner's office. Certainly two reliable agencies, but the Quebec Coroner's office has jurisdiction over the entire province, but the OPP does not. Some large rural areas are covered by regional police forces, and Julian was able to track down one fatality that had not been included in the OPP statistics for 2002-04.

The numbers after 1996, when regulations in Quebec changed, look hopeful to people who would like to keep children off ATVs. In the five years before 1996 there were 19 fatalities; in the following five years there were 11. But with such a small sample size it is difficult to say these numbers are statistically significant.

Bob Ramsay seemed genuinely distraught when confronted with this new information.

"We thought we had the right information," said Ramsay. "I want to make sure that people understand we're trying to do the right thing here."

But it seems when you're dealing with statistics it's difficult to know what the right thing is.