School focuses on quad bike safety

A quad bike accidents study calls for better safety education aimed at young riders.

The study, released last month, and subsequent report published in the ANZ Journal of Surgery, was conducted after medical authorities nationwide said there had been an "alarming" rise in quad bike crash statistics.

But one Hawke's Bay high school took that message aboard five years ago and since then has taught and honed the riding and safety skills of about 200 Year 11 and Year 12 boys in a training programme which is the only one of its kind in the region.

Paul Garland, who has been a technology teacher at Napier Boys' High School for about 12 years, saw the need for a rider safety programme to be introduced as part of the school's farm workshop course.

It began with machines loaned to the school by parents who had boys at the school's hostel - which caters for mainly rural students.

"But that was too risky in the end," Mr Garland said, conscious that the school could have been up for hefty costs if some were damaged.

It was one of the school board members, Terry Andrews, who came up with a solution as he oversaw the Landcorp fleets of vehicles.

Farm motorcycles and quads which were put aside for auction sales provided the solution, with Landcorp agreeing to make two bikes and two quads available.

Since then Mr Garland has been able to annually stage the three-week courses for boys targeting rural careers and puts through about 40 a year.

"We get them to do 10 hours each on the bikes and the quads to pass the basic handling course."

He has a background of working in agriculture and orchard management, and has been a motorcyclist most of his life.

With safety at the forefront, the school was delighted to gain the support of New Zealand company Trax Equipment which has developed an effective flexible "Lifeguard" safety roll bar for quad bikes.

"They came forward with a couple which they loaned to us," Mr Garland said.

The bars are designed to deform around the rider in the event of a rollover, protecting them from taking the weight of the quad.

The safety record so far on the courses was though second-to-none, Mr Garland said.

"I tell them it is all about attitude.

"This is training for a workplace and that workplace does not want to see its people injured or its machinery damaged. They take that aboard."

He said one or two young riders, who had previous bike experience, sometimes let loose a little but a yellow card (meaning back to the classroom for the rest of the hour-long session) was soon brought out.

ACC figures show that nearly 430 injury claims relating to accidents involving ATVs (all terrain vehicles) had been lodged in Hawke's Bay over the past three years. Nationally there were 761 work-related claims involving ATVs last year.