In the past three weeks a teenager in Victoria was tragically killed while riding a motorbike on a farm, and two others were critically injured in separate incidents on quad bikes and motorbikes, both on farms, not wearing helmets. In the years we’ve worked in The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU), motorbike and quad bike injuries have increased.
The injuries are often horrific and have resulted in two deaths in Victoria in the past two years. In the last two years there have been 18 children admitted to the ICU in Melbourne with severe trauma from motorbikes or quad-bikes. Last year the injured victims in Victoria included a toddler as young as two years of age, and there were two quad bike-related deaths in New South Wales and Queensland, and one in South Australia.
The circumstances vary, from one child moving cows, some bikes rolling downhill, some crashing into gates or poles or other motorbikes. Most occur off-road or on private properties. What doesn’t vary is the distress the accidents cause the child, their family, and clinicians who care for them.
These cases highlight several major issues that result in death and injury in Victorian children. First, the use of motorised vehicles (quad bikes, motorbikes, tractors) by children off-road for recreational purposes who are inadequately supervised; second, injuries when children are assisting with farm work; and thirdly the lack of legislative protection for children involved in the inappropriate use of vehicles on private property.
It goes without saying that young children have no place on quad-bikes. But even older children and adolescents using bikes for recreational purposes or work often do not have the strength, coordination or maturity to use such vehicles safely. Some injuries occur from impulsivity and bravado, especially in older children, and many from lack of adult supervision of young children. Many other circumstances are just accidents waiting to happen.
It is too common for children to be injured or killed by farm vehicles or other equipment while working or accompanying their parents. Several children, some of pre-school age, are admitted to the RCH each year after being seriously injured in such circumstances – with head injuries, multiple fractures or internal trauma.
Why is the safety of children assisting on family farms after hours or on weekends given less priority than safety for employees in other workplaces? Children are not permitted to be in other workplaces where there are any physical dangers without appropriate precautions and attention to work-place safety regulations. The same rules should apply on farms.
There is a lack of legislation to protect children from using motorised vehicles off-road and on private properties. Currently there is no requirement for a rider of a quad bike or motorbike on private property to wear a helmet or be of a minimum age. Adults should not allow unlicensed or inappropriate use of motorised vehicles and, when used by children of an appropriate age, the safety precautions used on roads – helmets and protective clothing – should also be observed off-road. Farmsafe Australia has valuable information for parents on child safety on farms.
We should do better at protecting children in Victoria. The laws should be looked at, and adults and communities need to take responsibility so that children are not allowed to be in harm’s way, and to ensure the same safety precautions that are legislated for roads and workplaces should apply to vehicles and equipment on rural properties. Concerns over individual rights and freedoms while on private property should not be allowed to get in the way of our duty to protect children.
Professor Trevor Duke
Deputy Director, RCH Intensive Care Unit
Written in conjunction with: Associate Professor James Tibballs, RCH Intensive Care Unit Deputy Director; Mr Russell Taylor, RCH Trauma Service Director; Professor Kerr Graham and Dr Michael Johnson, RCH Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; and Barbara Minuzzo, RCH Safety Centre.
Also see: RCH lobbies for ban on quad bikes