The New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment has released a formal Health and Safety Alert of quad bikes. As it is not yet available online, it is included below.
Footnote: Quad bike safety will be given a rest for a little while unless there is a significant issue. KJ
On 12 June 2010, SafetyAtWorkBlog noted the spokesperson for the National Farmers Federation, Duncan Fraser, supporting the voluntary fitting of roll protection devices to quadbikes in specific circumstances. On 20 June 2011, the New South Wales Farmers Federation’s Industrial Relations Committee Chair Graham Morphett has spoken in favour of “the mandatory fitting of roll bars” to quad bikes.
This is an extraordinary blow to the quad bike manufacturers who are set against rollover protection structures (ROPS) or crush protection devices (CPDs) for quad bikes.
Morphett’s comments deserve a little more analysis.
“Quad bikes can be extremely unstable on uneven farm terrain. Manufacturers have a responsibility to improve the design of the vehicles to ensure their safety. No quad bike should be sold without a roll over bar,” he said
SafetyAtWorkBlog has criticised manufacturers for not developing new designs that counter, what some research has described as the propensity to rollover. Morphett echoes this position.
Perhaps more significantly Morphett believes that new quadbikes Continue reading “Farming federation calls for mandatory fitting of safety devices to quadbikes”
Possible future OHS conversation between Person Conducting Business or Undertaking (PCBU) and an OHS Inspector or OHS professional looking at a piece of plant:
PCBU: “Look at this machine, it now complies with the work health and safety laws, as far as is reasonably practicable.”
OHS: “Terrific. How did you work out that the plant complies?”
PCBU: “Well we asked around and we reckon this is the best solution.”
OHS: “So did you assess whether anyone could get harmed using this machine?”
PCBU: “Yep”
OHS: “What sort of injury do you think could result from operating this plant?”
PCBU: “Not much”
OHS: “Who told you that the plant now meets all the requirements of the OHS legislation?”
PCBU: “Our workshop manager/neighbour/consultant….”
OHS: “Did they suggest ways for making the plant safe?”
PCBU: “Yep”
OHS: “So why isn’t there a guard around that pinch point?”
PCBU: “Ummmmm, I can’t afford the guard this month but the manager/neighbour/consultant said it’d be alright as long as we put this warning sign up in the meantime. But it’s reasonably practicable, I reckon.”
As the new Work Health and Safety laws become a reality in Australia from January 2012, the line of compliance will expand to create a grey band within which compliance is likely only to be determined by lawyers after an injury has occurred. Continue reading “Reasonably Practicable is more a hindrance than a help”
One of the most difficult safety management challenges is the control of hazards associated with working alone. The most effective control is to not work alone, but the difficulty comes because this option requires expenditure.
WorkSafe Victoria recently released an information sheet on this hazard and listed the following hazard control options:
WorkSafe wisely says that most workplaces will require a combination of these options to control the hazard of working alone.
Trying to reduce the hazards of working alone is a terrific indication of the economic health of a business, the level of safety commitment of a business owner or manager, and the state of safety knowledge in the company. Continue reading “New OHS info on Working Alone and Occupational Violence”
In early 2010, Australia’s Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) established a trans-Tasman working party to look at the safety issues of quad bikes, often called all-terrain vehicles. The working group is in the final stages of its report and a major motorcycle industry representative has not liked the findings and has apparently withdrawn from the working group. A report on the increasing tensions was published in this week’s The Weekly Times. SafetyAtWorkBlog has been told that the quad bike industry representative has walked out in protest.
Let’s look at what HWSA said about the working group in May 2010:
“HWSA Chair, John Watson, said every farming fatality leads to immeasurable suffering in close-knit rural communities and these figures are not acceptable.“The working group is expected to deliver solutions to safety problems associated with use of quad bikes on farm properties and raise awareness of practical risk controls,…“The group will look at issues that include design, safety equipment, training and instruction, aftermarket accessories, safe use and point of sale,….“The joint program of work will be delivered through an Industry Solutions Program where industry and regulators work together to address high risk safety issues – an initiative that has successfully provided practical solutions to a number of issues across many industries.“The working group is focused on producing tangible and sustainable safety outcomes across the farming and agricultural industry where quad bikes are commonly used….”
“It is our objective that all quad bike users are well informed of the manufacturer’s recommendations in relation to the safe use of these vehicles…”
The sticking point in the working group was, according to The Weekly Times, that
“”…the committee was expected to back the recommendation to “consider fitting an anti-crush device”, the strongest position yet for roll-over protection.”
A reader has been inspired by recent articles discussing OHS compliance to contribute their own article on some of the issues raised:
“Compliance”, while being a way forward in OHS, misses the mark. We should ask the question: Why do regulators want compliance anyway?
Compliance, or conformance as is alternatively used, is a means to an end. Not an end in itself. In haste to improve the world via compliance we sometimes forget that.
Compliance presumes that rules laid down by regulators are a “good enough” way to achieve safety. Compliance’s foundation is the minimum-standard. Foundations cannot be anything like the maximum-standard because best practice regulation knowledge backs up our common sense that maximum standards would be bad and expensive. But wouldn’t it be comforting to be able to encourage and get more than just the minimum?
Some who have felt the stick end of compliance might think some regulators believe their rules and guides are the only path to safety. But the fact is that even the best codes & regulations have flaws; they do change. Furthermore, exemptions get provided, position papers and codes of practice get written to fill the gaps. And they get re-written. Sometimes the reasons for a rule are lost in time. Shamefully, sometimes valid reasons never existed. Sometimes rules are written to serve the purposes of some over others or to empower authority. We can know this because COAG and the OBPR have to warn against it. Continue reading “Compliance or Confidence?”
Col Finnie has provided the following article in response to OHS compliance checklists:
It’s gotta be time to bite-the-bullet. The wish-fulfilment approach – that people will apply some sort of system to how they look after safety because that’s the only sensible way to do it – well, that’s not working, particularly it seems, in the small business area.
Time to regulate for the obligation to have something that can, at very least, lay the foundation for a comprehensive systematic approach. Seems just a bit whacked to me that a demonstrable systematic approach is required once a worker is injured (with the return-to-work obligations) and yet there is nuthin’ for the prevention stuff.
Getting a slapping from a magistrate for having no safe work procedures (as one part of a systematic approach) would work as an incentive if people were busted as often as they are for road traffic naughtiness; but we know that frequency of OHS busts are just not going to happen.
The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious) would have to be regulated in a smart way. Continue reading “Regulating The Great Leap Forward (Into The Bleeding Obvious)”
