A recent spate of serious quad bike accidents on Otago farms highlights the need for more action over quad bike deaths and injuries, Associate Prof David McBride says.
Prof McBride, of the University of Otago preventive and social medicine department, said recent accidents were clearly a concern.
Although it was coincidence so many accidents had happened in such a short time, deaths and serious injuries resulting from quad bike use had long been a fact of life in rural New Zealand.
In one sense ''it's just business as usual, in my view'', given the previous history of deaths and injuries.
Prof McBride emphasised he was not commenting on the specifics of the recent accidents, because he was unaware of the details, and they were still subject to investigation.
Tractor-related deaths had once been a source of great concern- they ''used to be the main cause of deaths on farms''- but effective action had since been taken to counter that. Those steps had including adding better physical protection against roll-overs, and further safety education.
Quad bike accidents were now firmly in the spotlight.
''It's the most serious situation on farms in New Zealand. We probably do need to do something about it.
''It's bad injuries, it's fatalities.''
A leaf needed to be taken out of the tractor safety book and applied to quad bike accidents.
More needed to be done to boost physical protection for riders on quad bikes, through improved design.
And more awareness and training were needed for riders.
''It's quite a complex little vehicle,'' he said.
WorkSafe New Zealand ultimately had to take the step of further increasing safety-related checking and enforcement on farms, although this could be unpopular.
Prof McBride, who has been closely involved in several previous university studies on quad bike and farm safety, said the action of riding quad bikes for some time, including the vibrations they emitted, clearly added to fatigue.
That fatigue could impair rider judgement at times.
He was determined to keep promoting safety messages, and hoped these would eventually be heeded.
