Quad-bike Safety

The wowsers are at it again.
In today's Dominion a Wellington Coroner blasts authorities for a lack of action mandating helmets, lap belts, and roll bars on all quad bikes.
The article then goes on to say the latest fatality of the 122 over the last 10 years, had never ridden a quad bike before.....,
So help me...
Some time ago I saw a statistic that went something like 46% of all such fatalities were attributable to inexperience, as in, mostly townies either visiting their country cousins, or sampling the work-style for the first time.
Such is the bain of my life, all these young smart-arses who think working on a farm comprises 100% blatting around at speed, eager to unleash their prowess on the machine, getting to and between jobs quick az, more important than actually knuckling down and doing something.
Furthermore, a bloke needs the BNZ behind him to keep the machinery up to it.

I agree with Benny Bennetts, and Bill Grice, CEO SuzukiNZ, correspondents in the latest Farmer Weekly, who say all that suggested extra gear won't make quads safer.
Where on earth that next letter comment came from about the father and son coming off their Suzuki quad within the same week, I dunno. Seems more like a congenital mental deficiency to me, wasn't there a lesson could've been learnt from the first accident?
I've had Suzuki quads for over 10 years, my current Eiger, (one of the initial run), has done nearly 30k of sterling and reliable work, in all conditions, on all surfaces and slopes and angles, no problem.

If this stuff ever gets enacted, any visiting OSH inspector will need to be sure of catching me on a good hair day.
And if they do make an example of me over it, I might just go back to a horse.
Try putting a lap-belt and roll-bar on that.
Or maybe for a change of vocation I might try being a Coroner.
Over in America, coroners are the subject of local elections, like the sherriff. Over there you can ride a motorcycle on the open road, in a T-shirt, without a helmet, just like we've done for years on farms here.
Just one important qualification to add.....
I rarely exceed 20kph on my quad, around the pace of a trotting dog.

ps. an interesting observation...
The maori part-timers I employ, to a man, (and woman), aren't smitten with the same machinery/boss abuse syndrome their pakeha counterparts display when given a quad to manage.
Its like they're chuffed at being given the responsibility, plus some intrigue at what the machine can do.
Or maybe they're just copying the Boss.