Farmers fined $40k by OSH for quad bike accident

[p.dath]

Just heard on the radio a farmer has been fined about $40k by OSH when an employee on a quad bike rode into a wire going across the paddock.

OSH determined that the lack of a helmet was a contributing factor to the injuries incurred (as opposed to the accident), and that by not wearing a helmet the farmer had failed to provide a safe working environment.


I guess next the farmer will be having to put high viz markers on the fence - just to make sure.

[JimO]

go onto a building site and have a look at the hazzard signs, fucked if i know how i have survived all these years without them, saw some builders working on a single story council flat today wearing glow in the dark vests and hardhats, earmuffs etc its a wonder they have time to do any work with all the shit they were wearing

[Virago]

go onto a building site and have a look...

No sorry, can't do that - not without a Site Safe Passport.

Got to do my two-yearly renewal on Friday - another half-day wasted for myself and one of my guys.

[Pedrostt500]

Ive had the site safe pasport for about the last 6 yrs havent been asked to show it to any one yet.

[Subike]

Is this not the very result that has been asked for in the threads about the cost of ACC?
Here we have the injury cost being extracted from the looser who did not take the standard saftey precaution on a quad of wearing a helmet.
Are we that shallow that we will moan about ACC , and the cost supposedly put onto our registration ACC levey by farmers...
Then we moan because OSH enforces a ruling that a helmet must be worn.
I have to say that I am on the OSH side in this one.
I have to ride a quad for 11hrs a day during the harvest season in the Vineyards doing bird scaring, I have to wear a hi viz vest and a helmet, its part of the safty requirments of my job. It is uncomforable and the vest is hot.
But its a requirement of the job I choose to do, so I wear it.
Good on OSH for enforcing the fine,
Maybee we will now see less youngsters being injured by quads.
$40k is a big deterant to being complacent.

[varminter]

They are now breeding high vis' cows in the interest of safety.

[duckonin]

Just heard on the radio a farmer has been fined about $40k by OSH when an employee on a quad bike rode into a wire going across the paddock.

OSH determined that the lack of a helmet was a contributing factor to the injuries incurred (as opposed to the accident), and that by not wearing a helmet the farmer had failed to provide a safe working environment.


I guess next the farmer will be having to put high viz markers on the fence - just to make sure.

Trouble with dairy farmers they are always changing staff,and they get some roughies, amazes me the speed some of the farm staff ride at, 4 most it may be the first time on a big powerful quad, some of which are in excess of 500cc, it is the WOW power factor....Buggar employing staff in this day and age, some of the buggars with their stupidity would get you hung even in a safe environment..:argh:

[98tls]

They are now breeding high vis' cows in the interest of safety. Yep.............

[bucket boy]

Trouble with dairy farmers they are always changing staff,and they get some roughies, amazes me the speed some of the farm staff ride at, 4 most it may be the first time on a big powerful quad, some of which are in excess of 500cc, it is the WOW power factor....Buggar employing staff in this day and age, some of the buggars with their stupidity would get you hung even in a safe environment..:argh:

The worst part about farming having to hire people

[sosman]

So if we are paying for the looser,why the farmer paying $40.000

[JimO]

No sorry, can't do that - not without a Site Safe Passport.

Got to do my two-yearly renewal on Friday - another half-day wasted for myself and one of my guys.

i dont do much commercial work but was working for a large car dealership directly for the owner not the builders when the forman asked me about my site safe passport, i said i dont have one, he said well you cant work on our site without one, i said no worries you pop over and see the head honcho and tell him that they wont be able to load their cars into the showroom on friday because the tiler isnt allowed to finish the job, he left me to it after that but the next day the big boss comes over to me and says they have had a complaint that i wasnt wearing steelcaps only gymshoes, i offered to let him hit my toes with a hammer and that they were a steel capped work shoe, he wasnt impressed with the builders and a couple of days later some guy from the builders office apologised to me. These same "sitesafe" builders were using a 2 lift mobile scaffold without a handrail and were working on a roof without a guardrail or harneses

[Katman]

I have seen some hideously unsafe farm bikes come into my workshop and have had the owners saying "Nah, don't worry about doing those wheel bearings and I'll sort out that crack in the frame another time" etc, etc...... They get told that if they're not prepared to let me repair any safety issues on their bike then I'd rather not work on it at all.

The worrying thing is that a lot of the time it isn't the owner of the bike having to use the death trap. It's their poor unsuspecting workers.

[Fatt Max]

I had to renew my electrical practisicing licence a few years ago. We were sitting in this classroom and one of the guys down the back asked the instructor for a pen.

The instructor replied:

"Sorry, I cant give you a pen because I do not have the time to train you in the correct use of a pen."

The guy (naturally) replied with astonishment containing a few expletives, as did the rest of us, and the instructor continued:

"you see, a pen has a sharp point on it, you could poke yourself in the eye or stab yourself or someone else. It also contains a poisionous liquid that you could drink etc. There are hazards attached to this pen the time permitted for this course does not allow me to train you how to use one"

The point was that this guy could not lend (or, in his words, issue) a pen as it is then deemed 'work equipment' and he is obliged to provide relevant training.

So, this farm hand gets injured, he does not hear a helmet and the farmer gets done for it. There is a certain amount of responsibility to be taken here but, as in my example above, the law and legislation sometimes makes a real arse of it.

When I told the pen story to one of the old boys down the RSA, he responded by saying:

"Those fuckers in London did'nt think much for our health and safety when we were fighting it out in '42, eh".

My $0.02c for the sake of it....

[MaxB]

I have to ride a quad for 11hrs a day during the harvest season in the Vineyards doing bird scaring, I have to wear a hi viz vest and a helmet, its part of the safty requirments of my job. It is uncomforable and the vest is hot.
But its a requirement of the job I choose to do, so I wear it.
Good on OSH for enforcing the fine,
Maybee we will now see less youngsters being injured by quads.
$40k is a big deterant to being complacent.

You can get mesh Hi viz vests these days. Maybe a bit cooler. Try NZ Safety, they had some on sale last time I was in.

[Headbanger]

After all the dumb shit stunts (still) pulled on farms and building sites its a good job your all getting hit with regulations to try and curb the madness.

Lets hope it has an impact on those that are dumb enough to believe their methodology is the way its to be done simply because they have always done it that way.

[MattRSK]

ive had the site safe pasport for about the last 6 yrs havent been asked to show it to any one yet.

+1 .

[duckonin]

Workers .."safety in the work place"...So the story goes this morn on the new's, a council contractor working on a warf or jetty tied himself to his ladder so he would not fall in the drink, more than likely an OSH requirement, but he did fall in the tide, ladder and all and yes he did drown..:whistle: Now who would want to tie themselves to any ladder?:oi-grr:

[jono035]

Workers .."safety in the work place"...So the story goes this morn on the new's, a council contractor working on a warf or jetty tied himself to his ladder so he would not fall in the drink, more than likely an OSH requirement, but he did fall in the tide, ladder and all and yes he did drown..:whistle: Now who would want to tie themselves to any ladder?:oi-grr:

I thought you were supposed to tie the ladder to what it was up against, not yourself to the ladder??

I worked on a big beef cattle block when I was living up north and having to put a helmet on every time we got on the quad would have been a pretty serious pain in the ass. I also don't know how much good it would have done given that the hairiest moments were things like spraying from the quad on steep hills and going through drainage ditches etc. For on-road riding I could see the benefit...

[Patrick]

I wonder.... was there no helmet at all?

Or was the rider a non ATGATT type......? And if he was a non ATGATT, then fair enough.... it's always someone elses fault.....


Workers .."safety in the work place"...So the story goes this morn on the new's, a council contractor working on a warf or jetty tied himself to his ladder so he would not fall in the drink, more than likely an OSH requirement, but he did fall in the tide, ladder and all and yes he did drown..:whistle: Now who would want to tie themselves to any ladder?:oi-grr:

Read about that one too. That was a weird one.... Still don't understand that..... Tie the ladder so it doesn't fall, but tie yourself to the ladder???????

[ynot slow]

When I worked on a MAF research farm,we never used helmets(in 1984-86),and had CT110,AG175,and yammy trike which towed a small trailer.The amount of times we rode like idiots chasing bulls or cows along the races to stop them mixing with other herds if they escaped meant we should've crashed heaps when riding on metal races.But mostly we fell off in paddocks at slow speeds.One guy did fall off,was picking out gravel for weeks from his knee,overalls don't protect much.He was going about 35km,middle of summer.

I really believe the 10' tall and bullet proof syndrome is to blame,even towing dads 4x4 with 15bales of hay on the trailer was tricky from paddock to barn at haymaking time,and with 75 or so bales to get in at 7.30pm,trying to beat darkness,a couple of times it was easy to lose the lot,i.e flip due to speed and incline of hill,only took about 5 loads to finish,but the 2nd to last load meant riding at awkward angle,and I was ready to jump off 4x4 uphill.And had fed out same paddock a few times,but with less of a load so thought I knew the best route.

[davereid]

I thought you were supposed to tie the ladder to what it was up against, not yourself to the ladder??

I have been told, but I can't confirm that the worker was on a ladder that was a permanent structure - not a stepladder.

I contract in this industry myself, and was very interested to see what had happened, but it has proved very hard to get any facts.

[marty]

I have been told, but I can't confirm that the worker was on a ladder that was a permanent structure - not a stepladder.

I contract in this industry myself, and was very interested to see what had happened, but it has proved very hard to get any facts.

The fixed ladder would make sense if it was off the side of a wharf, but no quick release carabiner?

If the ladder attachment was suspect, someone's gonna wear some big fines!

[jono035]

I have been told, but I can't confirm that the worker was on a ladder that was a permanent structure - not a stepladder.

I contract in this industry myself, and was very interested to see what had happened, but it has proved very hard to get any facts.

Ahhh, well that'd make more sense! So I guess for the ladder to go in with him it would have had to have been dodgy, then broken off (or he was in process of cutting it off while attached :p)

Any time we were working on heights or over water we'd have a full harness on with a shock-pack + lanyard. The emphasis was always on clipping it somewhere that would actually hold your weight and not follow you down... We were often using them in situations where rescue was pretty much impossible in a timely manner so were told to use them in such a way that you couldn't go over the edge even if you tried... When I left they were just starting to get anally retentive and using 2 lanyards so that one would always remain clipped... More a cover-their-arse thing than anything I guess, make it completely impossible for someone to fall off unless they were at fault somehow.

For going up and down internal ladders there was a steel cable running between me and the ladder that was strained up and had a follower thing that you could clip on that allowed you to go up or down slowly, but as soon as you got too quick it'd lock.

I don't know if that is specific to places that do work at heights though?

[MarkH]

Just heard on the radio a farmer has been fined about $40k by OSH when an employee on a quad bike rode into a wire going across the paddock.

OSH determined that the lack of a helmet was a contributing factor to the injuries incurred (as opposed to the accident), and that by not wearing a helmet the farmer had failed to provide a safe working environment.


I guess next the farmer will be having to put high viz markers on the fence - just to make sure.

It seems OSH did something useful here - hopefully helmets will be worn in future on this farm.

Back around 1986 my best mate's 15 year old brother left school for a farm job, he didn't wear a helmet either - the funeral of a 15 year old is not a very happy occasion. :(

[NighthawkNZ]

Are we that shallow...

Bloody oath we are...