Tractor Safety is no Accident

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The youngest victim of tractor fatalities in 2003 was a 2-year-old Tennessee boy who was run over after falling off a tractor. The oldest was a 97-year-old Kansas man whose tractor flipped into a ditch. The point is that tractor accidents are indiscriminate. But by using some simple tips and safety precautions, you can minimize the hazards of tractor operation.

Roll bars

Roll-overs claim at least 130 lives each year and account for the majority of all tractor-related fatalities. The best tool to prevent such deaths is a seat belt used with a simple roll bar, also called a Roll-over Protective Structure (ROPS). “A tractor without a ROPS is a fatality waiting to happen,” says Fred Blosser, a NIOSH spokesperson

“Using ROPS and seat belts is estimated to be 99 percent effective in preventing death or serious injury in an overturn,” according to a June 2004 NIOSH report

The need for tractor roll bars is recognized worldwide. Sweden passed a law in 1957 mandating the gradual phase-in of roll bars, which were required by law on all new tractors two years later. By 1990, tractor- related deaths in Sweden had fallen 92 percent. Similar laws achieved success in Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and several Canadian provinces

Roll bars first became available in the United States in 1971. Although the United States has never passed a law making roll bars mandatory, tractor manufacturers have voluntarily installed them on new tractors since 1985, according to Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. But, according to a 2004 NIOSH study, of the 4.8 million tractors in the United States, more than half do not have roll-over protection. Retrofitting those older tractors with roll bars would save an estimated 2,000 lives during the next 18 years in which those tractors are expected to be operational

While federal safety officials wrangle over tax credits, subsidies or insurance discounts for improving safety, the Kubota Tractor Corp. has jumped to the front on the issue. A certificate available on its Web site (www.kubota.com) gives Kubota owners up to $50 off the purchase of roll bars (which can cost up to about $350) for many selected Kubota models. Contact your local dealer about the certificates if you don’t have Internet access.

“Roll bars are such a wonderful invention,” says Eliot Coleman, an organic farmer who added a roll bar to his older, compact John Deere tractor. “They are a good insurance policy.” For large jobs around his coastal Maine farm, Coleman borrows a 55-horsepower tractor from a neighbor. The neighbor’s tractor does not have a roll bar. “That really makes me nervous,” Coleman says

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