Quad bikes 'pose unacceptable risk'

An Australian academic says quad bikes should be treated with contempt, not respect.

Victorian Institute of Occupational Safety and Health director Steve Young told the Otago Daily Times quad bikes ''pose an unacceptable risk to all people who drive them''.

His comments came after an article in yesterday's ODT which said 12 children aged under 16 died driving quad bikes between 2002 and 2012.

Federated Farmers Otago president Stephen Korteweg defended quad bikes as a ''much-used vehicle'' and more ''an asset, rather than a liability''.

Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee chairwoman Dr Felicity Dumble said greater care was needed when using the vehicles and children should be discouraged from using them.

But Mr Young, who works from Federation University in Mt Helen, Victoria, said the risks the bikes posed outweighed their usefulness, despite the rider's age.

''The statement by the Otago President of Federation Farmers, Stephen Korteweg, that a quad bike 'needs to be treated with respect' is misleading. A quad bike needs to be treated with contempt,'' the former Dunedin man said.

''Even Dr Dumble's well-meaning and accurate comments about children not using quad bikes may add to the confusion.

Her appropriate focus on the risk to children from these machines may be inferred by some as meaning that somehow adults are suited to drive them without incident, as long as they adhere to manufacturer's safety guidelines.

''This is simply not true. Big, strong, farmers have fatal accidents even when adhering to so-called 'safety guidelines'.

The machines pose an unacceptable risk to all people who drive them and this must be acknowledged.''

He pointed to research released last year which showed the number of incidents involving quad bikes was increasing and resulted in more serious injury than other similar accidents.

''In my experience of working within the New Zealand rural industry, farmers are generally highly competent, intelligent businesspeople who manage risk every day of the year,'' he said.

''They weigh the risks of changes in the weather, stock prices, interest rates, and a thousand other variables in their business activity.

''Yet the outrageous risk of using quad bikes tends to be confused with issues of personal freedom, an overinflated regard of their ability to control the uncontrollable and a contempt for the evidence.

''They are prepared to gamble on their own and their children's lives that the chance of quad bike catastrophe is unlikely on their property. The chance of a serious quad bike injury to a farmer's family and employees is very high.''

Yesterday, in the wake of a report by the Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee, Federated Farmers health and safety spokeswoman Katie Milne said farm safety was not helped by punitive fines after a $40,000 fine was imposed on a Marlborough couple, who were riding quad bikes without helmets and carrying children as passengers.

''This sort of public issue is just going to get farmers' backs up and make them feel picked on, not make them safer farm operators, which is what we want,'' she said.

The report said 33 children were killed in off-road vehicle accidents between 2002 and 2012. Nearly half were using the vehicles recreationally.

The report showed from 2002 to 2012, 15 children died while operating motorcycles and 12 on quad bikes. The youngest victim was under 5. Twenty-two children were operating the vehicles by themselves.

timothy.brown@odt.co.nz

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