Here in Canada the ice fishers drive up to their huts in cars and trucks; so, after the huts are out as long as you see road vehicles (not snowmobiles), your odds are pretty good.
Some communities put in short cuts to save a long drive around the lake, which is used until the first car goes in
As PDAR has observed,
nothing substitutes for walking on it yourself.
In certain places up North they put in ice roads to reach remote communities and run semi-trailers along the ice. But just about every year, somebody goes in
Roof exits are commonly installed
Once temperatures get above freezing, candle ice can develop. It can be six feet thick and you can fall through it
One fine summer, I was canoeing down the Spanish River where it was a number of ponds with sandbars and riffles in between. As we came over one sandbar, we passed over a moose skeleton that seemed as big as the canoe. Most likely that moose had fallen because the current below had thinned the ice and it got trapped by the current between the ice and the sandbar. Snowmobilers do this too, perhaps even more than the moose do
