AN AUSTRALIAN push to introduce a star rating system for quad bikes has been presented to an international conference in Sweden.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales and the state's WorkCover authority presented a paper on the system at 24th Enhanced Safety of Vehicles Conference, in Gothenberg, Sweden, earlier this month.
Quad bike and side by side vehicle incidents account for about 12 to 14 deaths and up to 1400 injuries a year, in Australia.
Australian Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety director Tony Lower said it was the first genuinely independent assessment of the program to be placed in the public domain, of the use of such vehicles for agricultural use.
"The good thing is that it probably supports the move to side by side vehicles, there is very clear evidence they are fundamentally safer and probably more practical for farming," Associate Professor Lower said.
"If farmers are not in a position to upgrade, it also points out the high effective nature of crush protection devices," he said.
The paper would set the standard for where the industry should go, in the future, he said.
Conference participants were told the Australian Terrain Vehicle Assessment Program (ATVAP) consumer safety star rating system had been developed on the basis of a series of tests assessing a vehicle's static stability, dynamic handling and rollover crashworthiness.
It was proposed as a method to reduce serious and fatal injuries, mainly resulting from quad bike rollovers.
Team leader Professor Raphael Grzebieta told the conference the objective was to introduce a robust, test based rating system, in order to provide consumer based incentives for informed, safer and appropriate vehicle purchase.
It aimed to encourage incentives and competition amongst quad bike and SSV manufacturers to improved design and models.
"Using the Star Rating system, manufacturers would be encouraged to compete with each other in order to make their products attractive to potential consumers and workplace plant managers wanting to purchase a safer workplace/farming vehicle and comply with workplace regulations," Prof Grzebieta said.
"As a result the ATVAP Star Rating method was developed within a major program of tests, namely the Quad bike Performance Project (QBPP), managed and carried out at the University of New South Wales (NSW), Australia," he said.
"This was also the first time that such a comparison of vehicle stability, handling and crashworthiness has been made across such a diverse range of terrain vehicle types."
This enabled the focus of the testing to broaden from just considering what improvements to quad bikes could be made by manufacturers.
"What has resulted is a much more fundamental approach to risk education/management options involving, in principle, appropriate vehicle selection and 'fitness for purpose' criteria, and provision of previously unavailable comparison of Star Rating information for quad bikes and SSVs for consumers," he said.
The system was capable of providing sufficient discrimination in the range of vehicles tested and commonly used, as a basis for consumers to be able to choose a vehicle that provided a lower risk of rollover, and lower risk of injury if the vehicle did roll.
