WorkSafe enters battle over quadbike safety

A decision by WorkSafe Victoria about the fitting of crush protection devices (CPD) to quad-bikes (All Terrain Vehicles/ATV) gained the major prominence in the latest edition of a major Australian farming newspaper, The Weekly Times.  The newspaper reports that

“WorkSafe Victoria is tightening rules around quad bikes that will see them banned in workplaces unless appropriate rollover protection is fitted.”

Some of the argument over the last 24 hours has been around whether this means that CPDs are mandatory and, as always, cost.

The Weekly Times reports that recent WorkSafe Victoria appointee Marnie Williams has said

“….WorkSafe has reviewed its current strategy and has accepted that a roll-over protection device is an appropriate means of reducing risks when quad bikes are used in workplaces.

“While it will not be compulsory for Victorian employers to fit an operator protective device, WorkSafe has made the decision to declare them an appropriate means of controlling the risk of roll-over.

“This means that if a roll-over was to occur, the employer could face prosecution for failing to reduce the risk to the operator.””

It is these words that have generated much of the debate – if a CPD is not compulsory, it cannot be mandatory, so why bother?

Prosecution

The CEO of Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), Tony Weber, has said don’t bother.  In a media release issued on 17 February 2016, Weber asked:

“WorkSafe has also created some confusion for farmers in the case where a worker becomes injured on an ATV without an OPD. Would the employer be prosecuted by WorkSafe Victoria?”

“It is unfortunate that this focus on OPDs moves media and public emphasis away from known safety practices, which are proven to significantly improve rider safety.”

(The FCAI calls CPDs Operator Protective Devices)

The FCAI continues to advocate helmets and other safety measures (as it has for several years) rather than CPDs claiming that the best evidence supports these as safer that CPDs.  That evidence has been seriously challenged over many years, and is really not the point of WorkSafe’s advice.

WorkSafe Victoria is a state occupational health and safety regulator operating under its own, and increasingly unique, OHS laws.  It can note actions and advice of regulators in other States but is under no obligation to follow those actions. The FCAI applies a national perspective as it is a national organisation and seems concerned the advice may set a precedent.

The FCAI’s question of prosecution illustrates the ideology of this conservative organisation.  Is the organisation in favour of saving lives and minimising injuries or the avoidance of prosecution?

WorkSafe Victoria has identified a potential safety device that all farmers should consider when determining the safety of their workers who need to use quad bikes.  It has improved the OHS state of knowledge by identifying the CPD as “an appropriate means of controlling the risk of roll-over.”  If farmers want to comply with OHS laws AND reduce the risk of injury in their workers they should install a CPD on each quad bike.

Prosecution is a separate matter and, if it happened at all, would only occur AFTER a worker is seriously injured or killed.  The point of workplace safety is to avoid the harm and therefore avoid a prosecution.  Focussing on prosecution muddies the safety message and allows opponents to CPDs to drum up concerns and fears, many of which have been unreasonably generated by the FCAI in its Honda-backed campaign against CPDs.

Cost

Behind some of the discussion is the issue of cost, an issue that is always front of mind for farmers if not for safety advocates.  Cost considerations have a specific place in OHS deliberations and is supposed to be one, if not THE, last consideration when identifying potential hazard controls.  WorkSafe Victoria’s position paper on reasonably practicable says this of Cost:

“Once the likelihood and degree of harm from a hazard or risk is understood, and the availability and suitability of a relevant safety measure to eliminate or reduce the hazard or risk is established, that safety measure should be implemented unless the cost of doing so is so disproportionate to the benefit (in terms of reducing the severity of the hazard or risk) that it would be clearly unreasonable to justify the expenditure.” (emphasis added)

Marnie Williams has identified that the safety benefits of a CPD outweigh the cost.

On the issue of cost several people have reminded people of the rebate made available to farmers for the fitting of rollover protection devices (ROPS) on tractors. There has been no mention from WorkSafe Victoria of a similar rebate for CPDs but SafetyAtWorkBlog has been advised that WorkSafe New South Wales will be announcing just such a subsidy soon.

It is also useful to remember this text from a 2001 paper from the  RIRDC entitled “Guidelines for evaluation of safety programs for the agricultural industry“.  It related to ROPs but could easily be tweaked to apply to CPDs.

“…factors that impede farmers from fitting ROPS may include a lack of understanding about the protective nature of ROPS, lack of available ROPS for older tractors, competing priorities, or the cost of purchase and fitting. Strategies to increase ROPS fitment could include:

1. a publicity campaign to inform farmers of the risk of unprotected tractors
2. the gaining of a subsidy for farmers to purchase and fit ROPS
3. ensuring availability of ROPS and
4. legislative changes.

Implementing these strategies is a necessary step to achieving the objective of ROPS being fitted to 90% tractors in the state and thence to achieving the program goal of injury reduction.” (page 6, reformatted)

If WorkSafe Victoria could afford a CPD subsidy, it is likely to follow New South Wales’ lead.

After The Weekly Times broke the story, the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) immediately included a rebate request in its budget submission to the Victorian Government, except that the VFF expects the total cost of a CPD to be covered!

More importantly WorkSafe has moved the safety debate on quad bikes one big step forward.  In many ways this is the step that many were looking to come out of last year’s Queensland and New South Wales coronial inquests.

The quad bike safety advice to farmers is fairly simple. If you don’t need to ride a quad bike, don’t.  If you do, choose the safest model (probably a side-by-side vehicle).  If that’s not suitable, use a quad bike but one fitted with a CPD.  And wear a suitable helmet.

Everything else is about money, power and ideology rather than safety.

Kevin Jones