Quad Safety

[Scooter]

I suspect that an appreciable number of accidents involving quads occur when loading or unloading from trucks. By bringing this topic up, I don't want people to suddenly think that driving quads is less dangerous than it is. But I'd bet that at least a third of non-fatal accidents involving broken bones or concussions related to quads probably happen while loading or unloading.

It would be possible for industry to agree on SOP's for loading, which would include having large ring hooks in every vehicle, and banning the practice of riding quads up ramps into trucks. Instead, operators could hook up the winch cable and use the winch to pull the quad up into the truck. However, I don't see this happening quickly because our industry is too focused on time and efficiency. Why spend five or six minutes winching a quad up into a truck when you can drive it up in thirty seconds? Also, a significant number of quads don't have winches, or have winches that are broken.

However, let's ignore the loading issue for now as something to tackle in the future. In the meantime, what about unloading? There is no need to use a winch to unload a quad without having someone on it at the time. It's very easy to put the quad into neutral and push it out the back of the truck, down the ramps. Make sure nobody is near the bottom of the ramps, and make sure there isn't another truck nearby that could get dented. Just make sure the wheels are straight, then push and let it roll down and stop by itself, ten or fifteen feet away. Sure, occasionally the wheels will jerk to the left or right when it's rolling down the quad ramps, and maybe fall off with a foot or so left to go, but that's still less dangerous than riding it out.

This is something that I actually started to do this summer. I've seen far too many close calls over the years, where someone is backing the quad out and it somehow shifts sideways and starts to fall off the ramps.

Other recommendations:

1. Most quad ramps have chains at the top. USE THEM. It only takes thirty seconds to wrap the chains around the tailgate cables and hook them back onto themselves, so the ramps can't kick back and fall flat on the ground. Any companies that use quad ramps should go through all of them this winter, and make sure they have chains. I'll put some photos up here in a few days if you don't know what I'm talking about.

2. Make sure the truck is never facing uphill. Once the quad gets into the truck, you want it either to be flat (so it doesn't roll) or have the truck facing downhill slightly (so the quad rolls forward into the truck).

I'm sure that I could add more comments if I had time to think. But yeah, for starters, why doesn't everyone just push the quads out instead of riding them out?

Of the four foremen who have broken bones in my camp on quads, here's a summary:

1. Driving too quickly without good visibility of the road, front wheel hit a stump and handlebars jerked sideways, foreman had forearms lower than handlebars: when handlebars jerked back quickly, his wrist snapped backwards with the handlebars and broke.

2. Foreman loading quad into truck, with ramps at a steep angle (truck was facing up a slight hill). Foreman hesitated on the way up, and when the quad started to roll backwards, he applied the brakes and the quad flipped over backwards, landing on him, and fracturing vertebrae in his lower back.

3. Foreman unloading quad from truck, quad slipped sideways in early morning rain (might have also been an inappropriate tire on the quad) and when it slipped off, the foreman lurches sideways and his quad helmet hit the inner frame of the truck's canopy. Quad helmet cracked, broken vertebrae in neck, concussion.

4. Foreman was carrying too much gear while driving quad, somehow got tangled up while in reverse, throttle jammed and sent him backwards over a pretty steep cliff. Rolled quite far down a hill, fractured several vertebrae.

I think this might be a good time for me to put together a quad safety video. This is just the history of one camp, and there are a hundred camps operating in the bush in western Canada every summer.

[Casper]

That's some pretty serious injury there. I agree that a significant part of the injuries seems to happen during the loading/unloading. As for the chains, the company I work for has welded bolts of the ramps, and drilled holes in the tailgate. Once the bolts are in the holes, you don't need a nut or anything, gravity will d the rest. I never saw a ramp move whatsoever with this system.

As for the most (and only, to my knowledge) serious injury we had in camp, it happened like this. Insufficiently experienced driver was following a supervisor and didn't know where he was going. The supervisor went up and down in a deac, thus diseappearing from the driver's view. The driver followed up and down, but when he was going down he saw that the supervisor turned right into a quad trail. Driver slowed down too much (maybe even touched the front brake), quad rolled frontflip-style. Driver had a broken shoulderplate, and lucky that the quad didn't land straight on his spine. It happened late in the season, so fatigue was probably a factor, as the inexperience and the lack of a good plan before getting on the quad.

[Pebbles]

That's some pretty serious injury there. I agree that a significant part of the injuries seems to happen during the loading/unloading. As for the chains, the company I work for has welded bolts of the ramps, and drilled holes in the tailgate. Once the bolts are in the holes, you don't need a nut or anything, gravity will d the rest. I never saw a ramp move whatsoever with this system.

As for the most (and only, to my knowledge) serious injury we had in camp, it happened like this. Insufficiently experienced driver was following a supervisor and didn't know where he was going. The supervisor went up and down in a deac, thus diseappearing from the driver's view. The driver followed up and down, but when he was going down he saw that the supervisor turned right into a quad trail. Driver slowed down too much (maybe even touched the front brake), quad rolled frontflip-style. Driver had a broken shoulderplate, and lucky that the quad didn't land straight on his spine. It happened late in the season, so fatigue was probably a factor, as the inexperience and the lack of a good plan before getting on the quad.

Are you talking about Paul from Troy Bissel's crew? I was in that camp when it happened, it was pretty fucked up. Earlier in the season my foreman's quad tipped over the ledge of the road into a steep ditch. Fortunately he jumped as it tipped, landed at the bottom of the ditch and jumped forward again as the quad was rolling towards him. I later had to plant that area so I had a look around, and if that quad reached him, he would probably be done. The speed it accumulated from rolling down that steep incline was more than enough to instantly kill some one.

[Casper]

You are probably referring to Troy's camp, not crew...and yes it was Paul. The names are not necessary, tho.

[newforest]

I talked these over with a young guy I'm working with right now, who is a total gear head into mud trucks, etc. He told me several useful things; I'll have to actually write down some notes to share more of them.

Discussing passengers - of course it is easy to say "NO PASSENGERS" and plaster stickers all over a machine. But when there are two people looking at a 30 minute walk for one person and a quad ride for the other and no one else around, there will frequently be a quad ride for both.

Just as the first "quads" weren't even with four wheels (the disastrous 3 wheel models), the first solution to the inherent need for a passenger has been junked; this was to copy motorcycle seats, designed for a passenger to sit behind the driver. This is generally unworkable from a safety standpoint and there are two solutions: plaster "NO PASSENGER" stickers all over machines designed for one person and one person only. And move to what are called "Side by Sides" :



What I didn't know about these machines is that here in the USA at least, where everyone likes to sue everyone else over all misfortune, it is now mandatory that all side-by-sides are sold with roll bars. Buckled into a safety belt and with roll bar protection, a worst possible injury is probably a broken arm. Much better than a broken spine.

Now these machines frequently can't fit in the bed of a pick-up and need to be trailered. Which is more expense, and more hassle, and more minor skills to learn, and an occasional place you can't get all the way to with a trailer (which is what a good ATV is for). But I don't think you'll generally see an injury driving an ATV on or off a trailer.

Performance of side-by-sides? That's where I'll have to take some notes to share. I would note the winch built into the design of the random one I posted there.

The economics of it all? Can't help you there. In my country, the planters just have to put the trees on their backs and walk (bare-roots are light at least); bid to use a quad and you will frequently lose. The professional engineers and foresters get to zip around on the quads. The nicer ones might help out a little with moving a little stock sometimes, or a couple jugs of water. (I frequently have to wait a few weeks for a tract to be measured because the forester is waiting for his turn to use the quad and the trailer and the helper to help with backing the trailer and unloading the quad, all to GPS a tract I could walk around in an hour or two at the most, and coincidentally shaving several tenths of acres off the measurement and my pay because we plant to the edge of the block, not to the edge of where the quad can drive).

[Scooter]

Broken arms are possible, also concussions. Make sure passengers wear helmets too, in case it does tip and they hit their head. I guess it would also be possible to impale yourself on a stick if it tips.

Still, much safer than quads.

The biggest problem is that they won't go a lot of places where a quad will go, because of their size/weight.

[Scooter]

Here's an interesting video:



When I started to watch this, for the first few minutes, I was dubious. But then once I got into the video I saw that this add-on can certainly prevent some injuries. Certainly not all, but it looks like a good start.

Here's the company's website:

http://www.quadbar.com.au/

[Scooter]

Related to quads, I've seen a lot of people use quad ramps that don't have chains, which is moderately dumb. And I've seen people set up quad ramps that have chains but fail to attach the chains, which is incredibly stupid. Incidentally, I include myself in that category, but I've learned my lesson a couple times and I always take the twenty seconds to attach the chains whenever I use them now.

Here's a photo of a set of chains, showing how they can be attached. When they're set up like this, the ramps can't kick out as you're driving the quad up or down. If the ramps stay attached to the tailgate, there should be a reduced number of potential accidents.

[newforest]

So I finally was able to visit the ATV shop across the way from a gas station I've been using during brushing work a bunch the last 2 years. I thought they had a range of brands, but it turned out they only had one for the quads / side-by-sides = Can-Am.

The machines there were catching my eye, compared to Honda or Polaris, due to their suspensions:



Now the four-seat machines aren't what I'm thinking of for planting work, but an example of where these designs are headed in capacity to move things, such as boxes of tree seedlings. I talked things over at the shop for a bit. Can-Am designs for off-road racing and extreme trail riding, while other manufacturers (Polaris, Honda, Kawasaki) can have more of a work based application guiding their designs, but those are less likely to have the same level of off-road capabilities. There are some interesting things coming out of the racing side, such as "long-travel" shock kits, that could get these machines to a point that could handle driving around in logging slash I think.

I would say that quads where the operator can stand up will probably always have an advantage for picking a route over slash, compared to buckled-in, sitting operators. But buckled in, with a roll-bar, is a whole lot safer.

It's true the machines are heavy. I notice they almost all have winches built right into the design, behind the frame where they can't be stolen quickly.

I would also have to think that just increasing some cargo capacity on an off-road machine, over the amount of boxes a quad can deliver in one trip, has to increase overall safety as operator-hours go down. This might also make them more efficient to operate economically over time as well. That's not something I'll ever be able to figure out for my business, that's for sure. We can almost always get a four wheel drive pick-up close enough to a planting site to at least plant one long line into the back of the block at the worst.

I also discovered that two-seat quads are still made, and these might be more applicable (i.e. a cheaper solution than side-by-sides) to the access issues I am seeing in the Great Lakes where I am starting to work more and more around vehicle grade roads that just aren't open to vehicles except for a timber harvest. For estimates, I can just ride a mountain bike in, but I know I wouldn't want to ride one out after a day of production work.

But I think a good off-road performance shop, one with knowledge of the racing side of these things, could figure out a good machine and accessory package and possibly a modified bed space behind the driver, to drive in extreme off-road work situations while delivering a fair amount of cargo and increasing operator safety.

[Rage]

There is one point about quad safety that not too many people acknowledge, but should be said.
-As a forman, I was often put into situations where I was constantly behind on getting trees to my planters. The worst thing for a forman is knowing that he or she might have planters sitting waiting for trees. This situation will often force formen or tree runners to drive their quads like they're off-road racing.
-Here is a message for every SUPERVISOR. Before you make the decision that you don't need a helicopter or Haglan or Unimog make sure you have considered whether or not your forman can adequately supply the crew with trees while operating the quad at a safe speed.

[theBushman]

I'm trying to convince my employer to try a SxS ATV. Instead of putting 250lb on a rack rated for 90lb, I like the 600 and 1000lb ratings on the SxS machines. As far as getting stuck, fairly often, quads are getting stuck in existing ruts, the SxS doesn't fit those same ruts.
I think it is a matter of scale, if a job only needs one Quad, that's all you need. A bigger job needing 2 or more could be served by half as many SxS and carry passengers safely as well.

[Scooter]

This was posted in today's WSCA Rumour Roundup newsletter;

Some silviculture contractors are trying out ATVs equipped with roll bars this spring as a measure to prevent injuries from roll overs. The attachments are no substitute for properly trained operators, but they may mitigate an unexpected crash. Manufacturers claim the roll bar can reduce the risk of injuries from both pitching and rolling. For more information on the product, please visit http://www.quadbarsafety.com.

[jdtesluk]

These could also make a big difference in preventing people from being trapped under their quad. There have been several deaths from that happening, and several very close calls with people trapped in shallow water or stuck under their quad for a long time (overnight in one case I know of). I'll be interested to see if the bars also help with securing the loads.

[Rage]

http://www2.worksafebc.com/i/posters/pd ... 2014_5.pdf

[jdtesluk]

Hmm, roll cage wouldn't have helped there. Looks like a cascade of errors.

In regard to the roll bar, the models I saw were failures. Simply don't work as currently engineered. I tend to think now that the key needs to be not rolling in the first place. Proper training, not being in a rush, and most importantly the company (and the licensee) doing everything possible to provide good access so the challenge of getting people and workers to the block is not heaped onto the shoulders of 20-something year old forepersons and overworked supervisors.