A MAN who was trapped under a quad bike for 10 hours says new safety standards to be introduced by the Federal government are not the answer.
Farm contractor Graeme Fry was spraying for weeds on an isolated Donnybrook property in 2013 when the quad bike he was riding hit a rock and rolled several times, pinning him down and crushing both of his legs.
"It happened at about 9.30am and I knew no-one was going to be looking for me until I didn't return home that evening," Mr Fry said.
"Eventually I was found by two people at about 7.30pm and they lifted the bike off me, which was the worst thing they could have done because my body was going into shutdown mode, having been starved of blood for that long.
"My legs had been crushed and the muscle tissues had died due to lack of oxygen, so when they lifted the bike off the poisonous enzymes formed travelled through my bloodstream, causing more damage."
Mr Fry spent 72 days in intensive care, followed by eight weeks in a trauma unit and another three and a half months at a rehabilitation hospital where he had to re-learn how to sit, stand, walk, eat and speak, but said he was lucky to be alive.
"The family was called in three times to say their last goodbyes, but I'm a stubborn old bugger and that probably served me well," Mr Fry said.
It took three to four years for him to regain any sort of physical strength, with his left leg now paralysed below the knee due to irreversible nerve damage and infections throughout his body meaning he now lives with a stoma.
"My whole immune system is very weak and damaged as well as organs like my kidneys," Mr Fry said.
"It was touch and go for a while, but the rescue helicopter allowed me to keep my life and now I finally feel like I'm getting some of my fitness back."
Mr Fry, who prior to the accident had been riding quad bikes for 30 years without incident, said he was in two minds over the new standards to be introduced in two phases in October this year and October 2021.
The standards will require new quad bikes to be fitted with rollover devices and meet minimum stability requirements in a bid to reduce on-farm deaths and serious injuries.
"Because the standards have been driven by people other than the manufacturers, it's not an integrated design," Mr Fry said.
"I'm not sure if a rollover protective structure would have helped in my situation.
"It could have actually made it worse in that the rollover structure could have also pinned down another part of my body."
Mr Fry said he thought quad bikes were good for their intended use, but like any vehicle, there were dangerous consequences if things went wrong.
"There are other vehicles that may suit the purpose you want a quad bike for, including the side-by-side vehicles, which I purchased after my accident and wouldn't be without.
"I think they are a far safer and more versatile design than a quad bike - they do 99 per cent of what a quad bike can."
Following the announcement of the new standards to be introduced manufacturers Polaris, Yamaha and Honda have pulled out of the quad bike Australian market.
Polaris Inc Australia and New Zealand managing director Alan Collins said the company had made the decision because there was "no reliable science, data or research to support the safety benefits of the OPDs".
"The safety standard is required for people to fit an OPD device for which there is no Australian or global standard and we actually believe the OPD could create as many injuries as it prevents," Mr Collins said.
"When you consider the things that could happen - that style of device itself could injure an operator if they come off the vehicle.
"The bikes are operating on farms quite often with foliage and trees, so having something that protrudes high over the height of the operator and the vehicle is also fraught with danger.
"The vehicles themselves haven't been designed to carry such a device, so we don't support fitting them at all, whether they are fitted at a factory level, by the dealer or by the customer."
With Australia representing less than five per cent of Polaris Inc's market, Mr Collins said another overarching factor was that their sales had already been shifting "extraordinarily quickly" towards side-by-side vehicles.
"The side-by-side vehicles have engineered and certified rollover protection as opposed to retrofitting a ridiculous contraption at the back of the vehicle," he said.
"I think the arguments against side-by-side vehicles are due to flawed perceptions, which will change over time.
"There is a perception that side-by-sides are big and cumbersome vehicles, when in fact they're very nimble and agile vehicles.
"There are very few places you can take a quad bike that you couldn't take a side-by-side and I would argue that the five per cent of places a quad bike would venture that a side-by-side couldn't are probably the five per cent of places you shouldn't be going to start with."
Mr Collins said the perception that side-by-side vehicles were much more expensive was also false.
"Manufacturers need to do a much better job of informing customers that you can purchase an entry level range of side-by-side vehicles for less than most 500CC quad bikes on the market," he said.
"We're talking somewhere in the range of $12,000- $13,000 to get into a side-by-side, so it's not an excessively expensive vehicle at all."
Polaris Inc will retreat from the quad bike market in October when the first stage of the new standards take effect, which requires lateral stability testing and for the result to be displayed on the vehicle.
"Given that we are exiting the market anyway, it is somewhat unviable to go through that whole process for the sake of staying in the market for one more year," Mr Collins said.
"We already have 30 models with engineered rollover protection in the form of our side-by-side range, so that's where we are going to focus our efforts."
A WA industry sales representative who wished to remain anonymous told Farm Weekly the new standards were a knee-jerk reaction.
"Something is always going to be number one killer on farms, so what if headers killed the most people - are we going to ban headers?" he said.
"Where do we stop?
"I have no problem with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) putting a ruling out that the quad bikes need rollover protection, but I have a problem that it has to be factory fitted.
"Quad bikes are such an important piece of equipment on a farm - they do firebreaks, carry water, pull trailers for rock picking and I, along with many other farmers, believe it's the wrong way to go.
"The side-by-side machines aren't good for spraying and don't have the maneuverability you need when you're moving stock.
"We also have some trouble selling them because for $20 grand you can buy a fairly good ute instead."
Moora sheep and cropping farmer David Hamilton agreed that side-by-side vehicles weren't as practical for farmers.
"We use our two quad bikes every day and they are imperative to our work," Mr Hamilton said.
"My operation involves carrying sheep on the bike and going around under trees and scrubs but these rollover devices could catch on branches and flip me off and impede the way we use the machines."
Mr Hamilton said he was disappointed that the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) had championed the new standards and that the organisation was "out of touch" with farmers.
"I haven't heard of another farmer or producer that wants this change in legislation," Mr Hamilton said.
"The statistics on quad bike deaths might be high but when you look at the numbers, children under 16 aren't allowed to operate them yet they represent a large proportion of the deaths as well as people that are over 60-years-old.
"Those two categories make up 82pc of the deaths and only half of the deaths are when people are working, so a lot of these are recreational deaths, yet it's really going to harm our operations."
A WorkSafe WA spokesperson told Farm Weekly there had been three-work related deaths in WA involving all terrain vehicles (ATV) since December 2018, with the death of a 76-year-old in May 2020, a 51-year-old in April 2019 and a 17-year-old in December 2018.
This compares to national figures from the Safe Work Australia website which states there have been four quad bike work-related deaths in 2020 as at June 18, three fatalities in 2019 and five fatalities in 2018.
Mojo Motorcycles director Michael Poynton said following the announcement in October last year that there would be changes in legislation the company had just "got on with the job" to ensure it could meet the new compliance standards and stay in the quad bike market.
While five years ago the market had been predominantly ATVs, he said in the past five to six years there had been a trend towards side-by-side vehicles.
"But over the past couple of months, because other manufacturers made their position clear that they are exiting the market, there has been some panic buying and the ATV market is probably the strongest we have seen," Mr Poynton said.
"We released the first of our compliant models, the 400CC, to our dealer at the end of last month and at a retail level it has been exceptionally well received.
"There was a price increase of only $500 over the model that it replaced and customers get the peace of mind that they are buying something which is compliant with Stage 2 of the legislation."