Motor industry group calls for new safety rules for quad bikes
The Motor Industry Association (MIA) is calling for mandatory safety rules for the use of quad bikes and small utility vehicles in the workplace, after several coronial inquests.
The inquests revealed new regulations would reduce serious injuries and fatalities, which prompted the call to the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety.
MIA called for helmets to be made compulsory, children under 16 to be forbidden from riding adult-size quad bikes and passengers to be banned from single-seat bikes.
MIA chief executive David Crawford said the safe use of small vehicles, farm bikes, ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) and side-by-side vehicles is “of paramount importance to manufacturers, distributors, dealerships and their customers”.
The MIA also wants the Government to consider compulsory seatbelts where they are fitted by the manufacturer of side-by-side vehicles.
But former Central Hawke’s Bay mayor and farmer Peter Butler said wearing helmets should be up to the individual.
He has owned 103 motorbikes, three wheelers and sideby-sides in his farming career, which had travelled about 1,650,000km cross country without causing casualties.
“I’d say there is more head injuries in Auckland City in motor vehicles than there are on all the farms in New Zealand,” he said.
“When I see everyone on
the Auckland motorway wearing helmets, I’ll wear a helmet.”
Butler said along with the discomfort of fibreglass during colder and warmer months, the calls would affect the childhood of Kiwis and what has always been our culture.
From when his kids were pre-schoolers “they hopped on the back of the motorbike and the four-wheeler”.
“This is a lifestyle that every kid in New Zealand had and once upon a time, everybody in New Zealand had a relation on the farm, knew someone, and had holidays the farm.
“What are you going to do with kids nowadays, wrap them up in cotton wool and leave them at home?”
Butler said he questioned the reality of who would police these regulations due to the fact 95 per cent of NZ cannot be seen from the road.
The MIA would have better luck reducing injuries by looking
after the roads and forgetting about our farmers, he said.
Farmer Tim Gilbertson said he understood the safety concerns that prompted compulsory regulations but safety is achieved through education, common sense and training.
“It’s almost an overreaction to a problem, because you’re never going to stop people taking kids out to feed the chooks or put a helmet on to drive 50m across a paddock.”
Gilbertson said although the MIA has good intentions, kids would not be able to learn how to drive safely on ATVs if they are banned from driving them until they are 16.
He said the laws would be impossible to police, and education and enforcing mandatory roll-over bars would instead reduce more injuries.
“Most people that get killed by farm bikes are not from head injuries, they’re actually crushed.”