Engineer: WorkSafe guilty of ‘corporate manslaughter’
A former quad bike safety research engineer blames WorkSafe for the high rate of fatalities caused by all terrain vehicles (ATVs), saying it is guilty of ‘‘corporate manslaughter’’ by not setting guidelines for the manufacture of rollover frames.
Last year, there were seven fatalities, the second-worst year for workplace quad bike deaths since 2006, with only 2015 topping that with nine fatalities.
Last year, ACC released figures showing quad bike users cost taxpayers more than $18 million.
Because of the number of injuries, in 2019 ACC launched a $180 cash-back programme to farmers fitting certain crush protection devices (CPDs).
WorkSafe recommended devices should be fitted but did not make them mandatory.
Christchurch-based Graham Garden helped research tractor safety frames as an agricultural engineer before working on interventions to mitigate trauma from ATVs, devoting his career to saving lives after he rolled a tractor on his family farm in West Otago. He is angry at WorkSafe for not implementing a nationally agreed performance standard on CPDs, and alleges the workplace watchdog and ACC were advising the fitting of machine guarding that was yet to be proven safe because of a lack of guidelines.
However, a WorkSafe spokeswoman said the organisation recommended using CPDs on quad bikes but did not specify a particular type.
Garden said WorkSafe’s predecessor, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), had drawn up guidelines for the design and construction of rollover protective devices on ATVs alongside industry groups in 1998 to ensure any frame fitted to an ATV was structurally sound.
However, the guidelines were withdrawn under pressure from ATV manufacturers who did not want the public to think their bikes were unsafe, he alleged.
He wants WorkSafe to revise the guidelines, implement them and make sure any safety devices used would provide an acceptable level of protection when a bike rolls, as he believes devices currently recommended by ACC would not meet the original guidelines. ‘‘WorkSafe is now recommending the fitting of frames for which there is also no nationally approved standard, and inspections reveal their likely failure to meet a standard introduced but then withdrawn by OSH back in 1998,’’ he said.
Since then there had been more than 65 fatalities and more than 600 notifiable injuries on quads, with 60 per cent of accidents recorded as roll events, he said. Based on Australian reports claiming there have been no recorded fatalities on quads fitted with frames, Garden believes WorkSafe’s apparent lack of action has resulted in 39 fatalities and 360 serious injuries in the past 22 years.
‘‘Such behaviour by organisations would not be tolerated in other workplaces and in my view should attract charges of criminal negligence or corporate manslaughter. People are being bullied. Nobody is making them accountable.’’
A WorkSafe spokeswoman said the Government was considering submissions on its plant and structures regulation review, and the outcome would be announced in the coming months. She said WorkSafe strongly recommended the use of CPDs on quad bikes but did not specify which devices farmers should purchase.
Current health and safety regulations require mobile plant to have rollover protective structures but there are exemptions for vehicles under 700 kilograms such as quad bikes.
‘‘However, a review that would repeal these regulations is under way. The plant and structures regulatory review has attracted general support for mirroring Australian model regulations.’’
This would mean making it mandatory for businesses to ensure a suitable combination of protective devices were provided and used, including on quad bikes, she said.
ACC declined to comment.
Current health and safety regulations require mobile plant to have rollover protective structures but there are exemptions for vehicles under 700 kilograms such as quad bikes.