Category: transport

The wisdom of a farming Near Miss

Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) agenda seems largely dictated by high risk industries like construction in some States and the mining sector in others. But agriculture is common to all Australia States and is consistently included in the official and unofficial workplace fatality data. New research has been released into serious farm injuries and which voices are the most effective in improving the situation.

The level of risk in Australian farms is illustrated well by

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Mandatory quad bike safety changes

Product Safety has never been far from the quad bike safety debate in Australia.

Three Wheeler Honda ATV

It was Product Safety that removed the three-wheel ATV from sale in the 1970s and 80s and it seems Product Safety may achieve a safety resolution that occupational health and safety (OHS) consultation could not.

On March 22, 2018 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued a media statement that says the ACCC, amongst other actions:

“…is proposing a mandatory safety standard that:….requires manufacturers to integrate an operator protection device, such as a crush protection device or roll over protection device in the design of new quad bikes…..”

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Trade unions, jobs, safety and the future

The recently appointed Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Sally McManus, made a major speech at the National Press Club on 21 March 2018.  It was forecast to lots of media outlets the morning prior to the speech with selected quotes from McManus, flagging how significant the trade union movements consider this speech.

She made her pitch by reiterating the Australian belief in fairness, the “fair go” and said this is based on two things – “having a job you can count on, and fair pay.” Having a “safe job” was sort-of mentioned in the speech but usually in political terms.  It will be interesting how this speech fits with the anticipated speech for International Workers’ Memorial Day in just over a month’s time.

Six trade union achievements were mentioned but workplace health and safety was not

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Farm newspaper supplement gets a good wrap

The Weekly Times newspaper has included an 8-page wraparound to its 7 February 2018 edition about workplace safety. The supplement is timely, the contents are indicative of cultural and political changes and the supplement is a nice summary of the multiple hazards and management approaches needed in agriculture (the same as in most industries, really).

Data quoted liberally from

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New farming incident statistics

The latest statistics of farm injuries from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare provide a useful insight in to the workplace risks of Australian farms. Given the workplace focus of the SafetyAtWorkBlog, and the articles written about the risk of working with quad bikes, the following statistics are of great interest:

“For quad bikes, almost 90% of injuries were sustained by the driver in people aged 15 and over.” (page 9)

“For injuries involving quad bikes, males accounted for two-thirds (66%) of all hospitalisations for children aged 0–14 and almost 80% of all hospitalisations for people aged 15 and over.” (page 9)

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Rail-related suicides discussed at ergonomics conference

Rail-related suicides are tragedies that ripple throughout society affecting families of the suicides as well as the train drivers, their families and their colleagues. Various strategies are being trialled but often the results of interventions are hard to quantify.  At the annual conference of the

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ACCC releases Issues Paper to start public quad bike safety consultation

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released an issues paper on quad bike safety with a deadline for public submissions of mid-December 2017.  An ACCC spokesperson has advised that submissions will be made available to the public through the website unless privacy and confidentiality is requested. A draft recommendation is scheduled for early 2018 with a final recommendation in mid-2018.

Issues papers serve two purposes – the provision of information and questions of particular importance.  This article will look at some of those questions.

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