Recent research has shown that traditional methods of managing health and safety don't work when dealing with critical risks like quad bikes, or working at heights. The research is saying in these cases you need to plan for the human error.
For example, using scaffolds for working at heights or safer vehicles such as side-by-sides which have roll bars.
To reduce the injuries and deaths from using quads in agriculture we need to focus more on higher end controls. These are the ways to remove risks to people to start with.
This is when we look at the viability of options to eliminate or substitute risks, such as side-by-sides, as well as ways to engineer the risks out. For example, by looking at reducing the number of or areas quad bikes are used on a farm, putting on roll bars or changing to a safer vehicle.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) requires farmers to manage their own risks as they are better placed to know what these are, and how best to deal with them. It also makes it clear businesses must do this to ensure people are not harmed.
Over the past couple of years, large organisations such as Landcorp, Department of Conservation, Dairy NZ and Fonterra have decided to replace their quad bike fleets with side-by-side vehicles or other alternative approaches to managing quad bike use.
For those considering quad bike alternatives, the key is whether the options are an effective way of managing risks.
I accept that simply swapping quad bikes for alternative vehicles such as side-by-sides may introduce new and different risks. We have had two deaths from side-by-sides in the last year.
However, in both cases, the drivers were not wearing seatbelts and we are advised that if they had they would have had a better chance of surviving. Our Australian counterparts, who have been shifting to side-by-sides, advise that from their experience they are safer if used correctly.
WorkSafe has been looking at areas where there is potential to reduce farm vehicle fatalities and injuries, including:
* Australian regulators' subsidy programmes to reduce high quad bike fatality and injury stats, to see what elements could work in the New Zealand context
* Considering Australian research on children on quads
* More recently we have been assessing a range of studies on roll-over protection devices as a means to engineer the crushing risk out. However, research conclusions differ.
We are in the initial stages of establishing a think tank with industry to understand how we can be most effective in reducing vehicle-related fatalities and injuries on farms. Any progress will only come through working with farmers. Watch this space.
Our previous campaigns have focused on basic health and safety precautions such as:
* Wearing a quadbike helmet
* Training staff to competently use the vehicle they will be operating
* Carrying out preventative maintenance
* Preparing farm maps and designating no-go areas.
Many farmers are taking these messages on board, but we continue to have a high rate of death and severe injury.
Experience won't prevent incidents. More than 50 per cent of people involved in quad bike fatalities are 55 years old and over and are experienced. While helmets reduce the risk of serious injury we know that many quad bike deaths are as a result of vehicle roll over, including being trapped under the bike.
Finally, I would like to end by reinforcing WorkSafe's opinion about kids riding quadbikes in workplaces.
Last month another rural family and community lost a child in a quad bike incident. It wasn't a workplace death, so WorkSafe isn't investigating. But the death registered with me, as a mother of four, and many of our people who come from farms.
Our position is that children should not ride adult quad bikes. They are at much greater risk because their cognitive or physical skills are not fully developed, and they do not have an appreciation of risk to be able to ride safely.
The challenge with farm injuries is to manage the risks appropriately and to actively look at alternatives for activities that are inherently dangerous. This task is in your hands and is really important - your family and community are riding on it.
