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Quad Bikes Essay

Decent Essays

and internal restrictions we’ve never had a serious accident. We’ve only ever had a chipped tooth… that was caused by having open face helmets which we’ve since replaced with full face helmets. Other industries have had an extremely bad reputation, and I’m not denying that but ours had a very good reputation for safety” SES volunteer
Prior to the temporary ban on Quad bike use, DFES engaged in two actions that would typically raise the level of urgency according to research but due to reasons explained below, the actions were not effective in doing so.
ENGAGING EXTERNAL CONSULTANTS
Research has found that a message generated by more than one source, particularly if external to the organisation, is given a greater air of believability and confirmation[9][10]. In line with this research, engaging external consultants from the CCIWA was one of DFES’ first actions. …show more content…

The first risk assessment was not specific to an emergency services context (being based primarily on desk research and agricultural sector data), which naturally made SES volunteers feel as if the report was not representative of their use of Quad bikes.
“The first guy basically came here to look at our quads and talk to us. Took some photos and went away. He might have gone to other sites. Then we got a report.” SES volunteer quote about the CCIWA consultant
“There was a severe lack of understanding from the CCIWA. Their interpretation of what they thought was safe contradicted the manufacturer’s recommendations. [For example they raised the issue that] we didn’t have flag poles [on the Quad bikes], but the manufacturer states [not to] attach additional stuff to your [quad bike] because it becomes an additional impact point… when you try to explain that [to the CCIWA consultants], they just dismissed you.” SES

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