Moves to make helmets mandatory for quad bike users and tougher training came under the spotlight at a national quad safety forum in far north Queensland.
The National ATV Safety Conference opened with startling statistics from a 2015 inquest into nine quad bike-related fatalities.
Peter DeWaard, Queensland Coroner’s Office, told the forum that people were ignoring warnings, so legislation for quad bike safety was needed.
“Based on the cases we looked at people are ignoring warnings, they are all over quad bikes and in operators manual but people don’t necessarily follow them and that’s why we think legislation is needed,” Mr DeWaard said.
Making helmets mandatory for quad bike users on private property is controversial but Mr DeWaard said helmets should apply to the activity of quad bike riding, not to the place.
“It doesn’t matter where you are riding it should be mandated a helmet is worn,” he said.
“It’s about changing behaviour.”
The forum heard that Queensland accounted for a quarter of the 175 quad bike related deaths in Australia since 2003, the most common cause of quad-bike related fatalitieis was head injury and large percentage of victims doe not wear helmets.
The most at risk age groups were 10 to 19 years, and those aged over 50 years.
Mr DeWaard said there was evidence from US states that have introduced mandatory helmets and had success.
“To me it was a no-brainer, helmets should be mandatory,” Mr DeWaard said.
“Then the type of helmet becomes the next issue and that’s where you need an Australian standard if you mandate helmets.”
Mr DeWaard conceded passing a law wasn't the whole solution, with a cultural shift needed.
“We felt as part of that cultural shift the starting point was to have a law,” he said.
Jamie Cupples, Farmsafe Queensland, said behaviour was one of the problems with the current training regime.
“You can got out and muster cattle and you may well know how to ride or not but as soon you get chasing a cow or sheep your mind switches into another division,” Mr Cupples said.
“It doesn’t think about riding a bike.
“Time after time I have looked at accidents where they’ve hit stumps or fallen into holes because their mind wasn’t on the job controlling the bike.”
Mr Cupples said training would not be enough if workplace behaviour was not changed.
“The take up of quad bike training in rural industries in Australia is probably one per cent,” Mr Cupples said.
Forum co-organiser Colin Lawson said he wasn’t surprised at the statistics.
“Part of why we had this forum was to surprise people,” Mr Lawson said.
“Quad bikes are very similar as compared to a passenger car.
“The reality is they are a handy tool on the farm but we are trying to take away some of that political hype around quad bikes.
“There are real fatalities that can be prevented – training is a big thing, helmets are a big thing and keeping kids off adult sized quads is another big part of it.”
