Real World Data Bringing Facts to the Fight

What We Know Quads versatile vehicles that get used outside their design parameters. There is considerable variation of opinion about safety, with a paucity of fact. We need to be able to support anecdotal evidence with quantitative data.

What We Know High frequency of LCE – consistent > 50% farm workers have experienced. – “A total of 79 of the 130 farmers studied had experienced at least one rollover or loss-of-control event while riding a quad bike.” Source: University of Otago: Ergonomics: April 2010

Landcorp Farming Ltd 137 Farms covering 376,942 hectares with 600 permanent on-farm staff Over 400 quads (excludes LUVs) – Representative quad (sheep and beef) average over winter / spring km per day 2.82 hrs per day Since 1 Jan 2009 – 1 death – 8 serious harm – 30 injury – 96 near miss Damage to quads shows around 40 roll-overs per year (not all reported) In-house testing showed current usage has risks, especially when using trailed implements Several farms choose not to use quads Corporate decision not to use on 13 new dairy farms Looking for a more viable vehicle mix (2 wheels, small tractors, LUV) Trialling Lifeguard RoP

Quad bike safety monitoring studies

What ACC Did Prompted by arguments around injury prevention Three part research design – Literature Review – Natural Experiment – Instrumentation Data

Three phase research commissioned by ACC Research – Phase one: Review of literature and previous research evidence for the effectiveness of rollover protection (ROP) measures completed by Frith (2012) – Phase two: “Natural experiment” using harm and near miss event reporting data and qualitative interviews – Phase three: Development of a GPS-based data recorder to examine the situations quad bike riders are exposed to. Quad bike project

The literature review showed: – Serious injury occurs in only a very small fraction of Quad Bike incidents. – Around a fifth of Quadbikes are equipped with some sort of ROPS – Around two thirds of Quad Bike deaths involve victim contact with the Quad Bike – There is little knowledge as to how many of the deaths involved bikes equipped with ROPS or if equipped, what type of ROPS was involved. – The literature directly related to Quad Bike roll-over is sparse, perhaps showing that the evidence base is weak. – ROPS computer-simulations have been carried out basically because epidemiological data on the incidence of ROPS involvement in injury on farms, or indeed elsewhere, is very sparse and thus retrospective epidemiological studies have been of limited value. No Surprises

Three phase research commissioned by ACC Research – Phase one: Review of literature and previous research evidence for the effectiveness of rollover protection (ROP) measures completed by Frith (2012) – Phase two: “Natural experiment” using harm and near miss event reporting data and qualitative interviews – Phase three: Development of a GPS-based data recorder to examine the situations quad bike riders are exposed to. Quad bike project

Coded and analysed all incident reports from from GWRC and Landcorp (N=71) Follow up interviews with random sample of staff who: – Had reported a near miss or harm event in the prior 5 years (N=22) – Had not reported any near miss or harm events in the prior 5 years (N=5) Small sample size – Findings should be treated with caution as small sample size – Particularly small numbers of accounts with ROP fitted Method

Characteristics of events Occurrence typeIncident reportsInterview data Near miss38 (53.5%)16 (41.0%) Personal harm21 (29.6%)16 (41.0%) Property harm7 (9.9%)7 (17.9%) Fatality1 (1.4%)- Unspecified4 (5.6%)- Total71 (100.0%)39 (100.0%) Interviewees estimated they have reported around 1 in 3 of the near misses they have had on quad bikes

More likely to be injured if – Heavier weight on the quad bike at the time – The quad bike rolled Injury most commonly caused by the bike rolling over the rider, pinning the rider or landing on the rider (72.2% of reports, 41.7% interviews). Rider experience was a factor: Low or medium experience were more likely to end in personal harm High experience more likely to end in near miss Injury factors

Vehicle speed Weather conditions Rider activity Presence of passengers Fatigue Factors not related to injury

Only environmental factor related to likelihood of rollover was the gradient of the terrain Factors related to rollover ReportsInterviews Terrain Flat13 (30.2%) 11 (27.5%) Slope30 (69.8%) 26 (65.0%) Uphill12 (40.0%) 12 (46.2%) Downhill 11 (36.7%) 11 (42.3%) Traversing3 (11.5%) Not specified7 (23.3%) Unsure or missing283 (7.5%)

Few cases of events with ROP fitted Some suggestion property damage more common when fitted – Could be due to a reduction in severity of event from personal harm to property damage Presence did not affect whether quad rolled – Evidence against theory those with ROP negatively compensating by riding with less caution Effect of rollover protection

Of those who rolled their bikes without ROP, 50% believed ROP would have improved the outcome, 5.6% believed it would have been detrimental “I don’t really know if rollover protection would have done anything as a hard bar might have done more damage to me…” Riders were more likely to believe ROP would have helped if they rolled the bike (p<.05) Those who had it fitted also liked ROP, and typically saw it as a “back-up” Rider beliefs and rollover protection

Strong belief that rider experience can correct for a lot of quad bike danger (e.g. active riding). – 76.9% of participants considered themselves highly experienced riders Training perceived as a waste of time as courses focus on flat land. Perception of need to match training to actual work. Strong belief that the risk can never be eliminated – farming is risky “Minimise the risk as much as you want but you won’t eliminate it. Riding quads is no more risky than other farm work.” Rider beliefs and quad safety

Three phase research commissioned by ACC Research – Phase one: Review of literature and previous research evidence for the effectiveness of rollover protection (ROP) measures completed by Frith (2012) – Phase two: “Natural experiment” using harm and near miss event reporting data and qualitative interviews – Phase three: Development of a GPS-based data recorder to examine the situations quad bike riders are exposed to. Quad bike project – GPS Study

Quad bikes fitted with an Altitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) and data logger collecting: Quad bike project

The device Unit comprised of – GPS Receiver – CH Robotics UM6 AHRS – SD Card Data logger Weather tight housing Powered from quad bike Begins recording data when ignition turned on.

Data was validated by self-report measures Self-report

Diary

Aim to create overall measures of exposure to: – Pitch or roll – Speed Also measures of time spent riding, and distances travelled Ability to proactively examine roll and speed “near miss” event detection Overall exposure and “event” data

66% of time with engine idling (less than 1kph) Less than 5% of time exposed to speeds over 30kph Preliminary findings - Speed

About 0.2% of time above 30 degrees About 0.7% of time above 25 degrees Preliminary findings - Roll

Roll example (White Rock Rd) Key Green marker < 20 degrees Yellow marker degrees Red marker > 30 degrees

Speed example (White Rock Rd) Key Green marker < 20 kph Yellow marker kph Red marker > 30 kph

As more studies are being done, we are starting to see a convergence of results between experimental and natural data, but we need more... The more matched quantitative and qualitative data we can collect, the more we will understand the causes of the incidents and the appropriate counter-measures. Conclusion

Looking to combine the interview and instrumentation studies together in future work ACC looking to partner with other organisations to extend this work and build evidence base Opportunities for further research and possible commercialisation Next steps