A Dargaville man says a flexible roll bar he's invented for quad bikes has already saved its first life.
Vern Suckling's Lifeguard crush protection device for quads won the New Zealand agricultural invention of the year award in 2012. It went on the market in February.
Mr Suckling says he's now heard from a New Zealand man farming in Chile who bought one of the first Lifeguards to come off his Dargaville production line and may owe his life to it.
Aedan Bryan has e-mailed Mr Suckling to say he rolled his quad recently and though he went under it, the roll bar held it off his head and back and he walked away unscathed.
Mr Suckling says the quad-bike manufacturing industry, led by Honda, has for years opposed roll bars on the basis that they caused more injuries than they prevented.
But he says safety officials from New Zealand, Australia and the United States at a Farm Safe conference in Queensland last August rejected the industry's research and position as invalid.
The inventor says the old-style rigid roll bars can injure people but his can't, because it is segmented and flexible. He says even if it lands on the rider, it will still hold the bike up and the rider can wriggle out from under unharmed.
Mr Suckling says his invention clamps on to any make of quad bike. He's sold about 60 since they went on the market last month, at about $1500 each.
Northland Coroner Brandt Shortland has held two inquests this week into quad bike fatalities, with two more to come. He says a pattern is emerging, with steep terrain being a factor in both deaths.
A Whangarei safety inspector attending the inquests, Phillip Bailey, told Radio New Zealand quad bikes are inherently unstable on steep terrain because of their low centre of gravity.
He says the newer quads have a wider wheel base and double wheels, which helps somewhat but does not totally overcome the instability problem on hills.
