At last somebody is applying some rational thought to this issue, and how pleasing it is coming from Fed Farmers own spokeswoman on Health and Safety, Jeanette Maxwell.
In a recent Dompost article she asks the question why the intense media scrutiny on farm quad accidents, 7 fatalities and 84 serious harm notifications last year, on around 100,000 machines on NZ farms, while on the road, there were 42 people killed and over 1000 seriously injured, on significantly fewer machines.
She dosent say how many road bikes there are, but looking up the govt stats it looks around 65,000.
At least that was the figure in 2007, and it dosent appear to have changed much since, despite a rush of new bike registrations in 2008.
That's around 7 times more road deaths per 1000 machines than on farms. Good point.
Simple conclusion is coroners and OSH staff havent got enough to do.
Farmers are always a good captive audience to wring a few more bucks from.
She goes on to quote other sectors such as water safety that say education is crucial, and excessive regulation, such as road machines are subject to, dont necessarily improve the stats.
If us farmers are going to be subject to more regulation, we're entitled to know why and what for.
Of course the nation could fix the accident rate over the whole spectrum in one fell swoop by getting rid of ACC so accident injuries become user pays, and businesses and vehicle owners could save a packet in ACC levies.
