Farmers defend kids' use of quad bikes

By Natalie Bridges
Annie Gill has been riding on a quad bike with her dad around the family farm since she was one year old.
Now four, she helps milk the cows and is learning the farming way of life.
Her five older siblings, aged from 17-29, did the same and by the time they were nine or 10 were independently operating the farm bike to do chores and help with the family workload.
"To me it's like there are too many people outside farming making decisions and laws who have never done that sort of work," said Annie's father Kevin Gill, a long-standing dairy farmer in the lower Kaimai Range. "It's different for those of us who are doing it every day."
Mr Gill has spoken out after the case of Taranaki farmer, Gavin Vanner, who was cleared this week over the death of his four-year-old daughter, Molly, who died last year when a farm bike rolled on top of her.
The Crown had claimed Mr Vanner was grossly negligent in allowing the four-year-old - who weighed 18kg - to ride his adult quad bike weighing 368kg to round up the cows for milking.
A jury took just 90 minutes to find Mr Vanner not guilty of the manslaughter of his daughter Molly.
Guidelines by the Labour Department, ACC and Federated Farmers say children younger than 15 should not ride on quadbikes.
But Mr Gill told the Bay of Plenty Times: "Annie goes every day on the quad bike because it's the way we live. But she's a passenger."
It is a choice between finding a daytime baby-sitter for his daughter or taking her with him and his wife, Sherie, on the farm.
"She's been going to the [cow] shed since she was one. Annie's a bit different [from our other children] because she's a kid in an adult world whereas if she had two or three other kids, it'd be a bit harder. Sherie always worked off the farm so Annie has been brought up with me."
When Annie is nine or 10 she will be expected to ride the farm bike to help with jobs around the farm like all her other siblings did.
"When they go on the quad bike they go to do something like get the cows, go and shift the calves or just do a rubbish dump. It's about our children learning a way of life. We teach them the skills of farming life before we let them have a go.
"Signs on the bikes say persons under 16 shouldn't be riding these bikes. But if you don't understand the farming life ... When you're farming and you want kids to go and get a couple of lame cows they can hop on the bike ... or when you're late home or bailing the kids can go and do that and help you."
Children brought up on farms understand the risks machinery presents - unlike the reckless behaviour some city children have shown on farms, Mr Gill said.
His children also learn to drive tractors by time they are 12-14.
But the Bay of Plenty provincial president of Federated Farmers, Derek Spratt, said although warning stickers advise that children under 16 should not be riding bikes and passengers should not be carried, it was part of farm life to do both.
"It is normal practice on a farm to have children coming out with us, even riding the bikes. ... I started to drive the farm truck when I was five and it's just one of those things. The children do a lot of help with farm work."
"I have full sympathy for the poor [Vanner] family. I fully agree with the verdict. [Accidents] can happen just as much in town where a child walks out and gets hit.
"Urban people don't fully understand what goes on on a farm. Children are not cotton-wooled like in town.They are learning every minute of their lives."