Twelve people die in side-by-side farm vehicle accidents in two years

Vehicle safety experts are reiterating calls for farmers to buckle up in their side-by-side vehicles, after research showed many on-farm deaths could be avoided with seatbelts.

Seat belts in side-by-side vehicles save lives.

THE seven farmers and five children who died in side-by-side vehicle accident during 2019 and 2020 are likely to be alive today if they had strapped on seatbelts.

It’s a sobering message from Australia’s vehicle safety experts, who warn farmers seem to have hit a cultural roadblock when it comes to strapping on seat belts before hurtling down a track at 40-50km/h.

“I think there’s some suggestion it’s cultural, that farmers are on their own place, not the road, so they don’t need to wear a seat belt,” University of Sydney farm safety researcher Tony Lower said.

While there was only limited coronial findings into Australian SBS deaths, associate professor Lower said US research showed most deaths occurred when drivers and passengers were half ejected from the vehicle and then caught in the rollover frame.

University of NSW emeritus professor of transport and road safety Raphael Grzebieta said farmers needed to understand SBS vehicle rollover protection only worked in tandem with seatbelts.

“All of them were not wearing seat belts,” Professor Grzebieta said. “There was a nasty one over Christmas, where a young child was crushed by the roll cage.

“They should put kids in child restraints.”

But the professor said years of safety research he has conducted into the vehicles showed wearing a seat belt in a SBS vehicle was far safer than riding a quad bike.

“Our reports quite clearly state that side-by-side are safer than quad bikes,” he said.

“Quad bikes are far more unstable and you can easily oversteer.”

AgHealth Australia’s latest report into farm deaths showed SBS vehicles were the third-ranked agent of death on farms in 2020, leading to seven deaths, just behind tractors with nine deaths and quad bikes topping the list with 14 deaths.

There was just one death involving a motorbike on Australian farms in 2020.

Eight of the 58 farm fatalities in 2020 involved children, while 28 were farmers 60 years and older. The 2019 toll was also 58, with 10 of those children under the age of 15.

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