Australia’s ATV manufacturers and dealers are urging State and Territory governments to adopt the recommendations of previous coronial inquests in order to fast-track better safety for ATV quad-bike riders.
The ATV industry and its representative body, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, have been long-term and firm advocates of keeping children under 16 years of age off adult-sized ATVs.
These full-sized vehicles were never designed to be used by children, the Chamber says.
“Warning labels on ATVs, safety information in the owner’s manual and freely available industry safety materials have been completely clear about the industry’s position prohibiting children riding adult-sized ATVs,” an industry statement said.
A recent tragic incident further underscored the importance of State and territory governments pushing forward with appropriate legislation to prevent misconceptions around Coronial rulings on this issue, and to give parents the best possible safety advice.
The facts were further clouded this week when a press release issued by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) misinterpreted the Coronial findings, the FCAI said.
Contrary to the RACS statement, neither the NSW Coroner (the outcomes are viewable here) nor the Queensland Coroner (outcomes viewable here) made any recommendation about children being banned from youth-sized, or ‘age appropriate’ ATVs.
In fact, the Queensland Coroner used North American ATV industry positions and advice to inform his recommendation for under 16 riders’ use of ATVs.
At the conclusion of these separate inquests, both Coroners also requested that the work safety agencies in these states and Safe Work Australia promote awareness around the dangers of allowing children to ride adult-sized ATVs.
Work Health and Safety Queensland has been active with the ATV industry on outlining these dangers at farm field days and expos.
The FCAI and ATV industry are urging state and territory governments to:
- Impose an immediate ban on all riders under the age of 16 from operating adult-sized ATVs.
- Mandate the continuous adult supervision of all under 16 riders (riding age appropriate ATVs).
- Work with the ATV industry on delivering key safety messages to the community, including the industry’s 5 Star Safety Guide (published below) to improve outcomes for all ATV users and to urge all riders to wear helmets.
Source: FCAI
New cloud software services (SaaS) developed specifically for quad-safety delivers quad and side-by-side rider behaviour mentoring insights to parents and employers, helps with coaching to improve safety ( SaaS delivers real time alerts for harsh cornering, harsh braking, high speed, steep terrain) ; some of the services deliver rider behaviour infringements direct to the mentors’ smart phones along with automatic crash and roll-over alerts sent via GSM or satellite for remote terrain; see one type of service Google ” Blackhawk Link ” . A recent quad and side by side rider behaviour study by Blackhawk of more than 30,000 rider-days found that on average there was 1 serious incident (tip or roll-over) for every 3.400 days use; with 300,000 quads in Australia and NZ thats 88 incidents a day; the safety $ rebate incentives by NSW and Victoria governments are wonderful contributions to building safety awareness and helping reduce accidents, for riders of all ages; will be great when the other states emulate these awareness campaigns.