Unpacking the Rural plant Code of Practice: Vehicle safety

This video covers vehicle safety on farm and is one of a series of educational videos designed to help you use the Rural plant Code of Practice to manage work health and safety risks on farm. There are several other videos in this series, including the safe use of technology, training and skills and in-field traffic management.

Afternoon, I'm Mark Lalor from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland for the Queensland Government and I'm out here in Mulgowie Yowie Farms with Mick and we're looking at the Rural plant Code of Practice.

And Mick, can you tell me a little bit about Mulgowie Yowie Farms please and what you produce here?

Yeah, for sure. We're a small family farm that employs less than 15 people and we grow, for about eight months of the year baby leaf salad and herb crops.

The Rural plant Code of Practice encompasses a lot of equipment on the farm. What do you have here on site?

Yeah, we have at least nine tractors and we have three side-by-side vehicles and some utes and a motorcycle.

With the machinery and plant with the tractors and side-by-sides, have you seen any changes in the time that you've been here?

Yeah, certainly this business has upgraded to newer equipment, especially tractors and side-by-sides have proven to be a good direction to go in because they're light and they don't get bogged in the mud like traditional utes do.

And some of those hazards on the farm that you have to be aware of when you're operating tractors. I see here we've got some power lines on the farm, some irrigation channels and that sort of thing. Any other hazards that you're aware of?

We certainly want to make sure that people aren't driving at excessive speed because we do have a few holes and dips and things like that in our country, especially when it's wet.

I think the other thing that we make tractor drivers well aware of is travelling, not to travel sideways on slopes, we've got a few embankments and we don't want to travel on those sideways, we want to approach them straight over.

We've got different types of implements on the farm there, so we've got ploughs and slashers and that sort of thing, so what's the risk when we do attach those implements to the tractor, what do we need to be looking for?

We're fortunate enough to use Quick Hitches for all of our large pieces of equipment, but certainly the operators need to be very aware of when they're getting on and off equipment and manoeuvring around them to make sure that the tractor's not likely to move or things are not likely to affect them while they're actually down there adjusting pieces of equipment.

How do you go training your workers when they come to farm?

That's something that we obviously we'd ask someone for their experience but we'd also, once we're confident that we think that they can operate that machinery, put them on them and get them to demonstrate small simple tasks first just to make sure that we're on the right track to make sure that they weren't in any way misrepresenting their experiences previously.

And then once we were confident enough with that, we'd slowly build them up to other more complicated tasks.

When you're operating the tractor out in the field, communicating with other people around you there, like you said before, you might have two tractors side by side, what do you use for communication?

With some of our mobile plant, we have two tractors and they're always turning at headlands. We've got systems for when one tractor will pull up and let the other one move away. We've also got a series of hand communications because it's often loud, there's two machines running and you can't always hear that easily. And so we've got a series of hand communications to let one person on the tractor know what the other one's doing and where they're going to. And also that enables staff to get off moving platforms and get away from the tractors safely to be away from them when they're turning at headlands.

So when you kick off in the morning and you go out and you're going out onto the farm with a tractor or side-by-side, what's the first thing that you have to do with that piece of plant before you go out?

We do have a checklist and they're looking for anything unusual like oil leaks, hydraulic leaks, making sure if they're using equipment like we have rotary hose, making sure that the PTOs look like they're effectively guarded and attached. Also when they start the thing up, they're basically going to be checking brakes, brakes function, making sure the gears seem right and looking out for or listening for any unusual things or anything that seems to be wrong with the equipment.

And if we did have a fault on the tractors during the day that needed repair, like I said a hydraulic leak there or something along those lines that may affect its usability, what's the process there around about getting you notified that needs something fixed?

If they have something that's going to affect the product or means that the equipment won't work properly, we'll have to pull the machines aside and bring them in and make an assessment as to whether we can continue. If we can't, we're lucky enough to have a couple of other backup tractors that we may be able to switch over.

Another thing we'll notice on farm, we have a lot of incidents involving where the mechanics come to farm to do maintenance on your tractor. Have you got a designated area for doing maintenance on your vehicles?

Yeah, we do. We've got a machinery shed at the back and we have a local mechanic from a local tractor dealership and what we do is in purchasing the tractors, we purchase that package with that and they have a dedicated shed to be able to do that work in.

A bit of information about the use of quad bikes on farm. We've had a number of fatalities involving them and lot of serious injuries. Important that the quad bike operator is suited to the operation of the vehicle so we don't put young people on an adult quad bike. When we're operating quad bikes we must wear helmets. An additional measure with sales of new quad bikes now is that there's a roll over protection that's attached to the quad bike.

These can be also attached with an aftermarket version to the existing quad bikes to make them safer. Another risk with quad bikes is attachments to the quad bike or things like spray tanks, material that they're carrying on the quad bikes can be overloaded and changes the dynamics of the quad bike.

I've been talking to Mick on farm here around about some of the traffic areas that they operate in and if they're on steep slopes they can lead to roll overs of quad bikes as well.

An important part about using quad bikes is before you get on the vehicle is to ensure that they're functioning correctly.

So we're looking for leaks, air pressure down on tyres, the tyres have got good tread on them. If we're putting any attachments on there, they're properly connected up to the quad bikes and have a checklist on the farm so that we check off all these features on the quad bike, making sure that they're safe to operate before we go out on farm.

In your time here on the farm, have you had any near misses with pieces of plant on the farm?

Yeah, well one thing that comes to mind a few years ago was a worker that had not long been at this farm but they were riding in the side of the side-by-side and the vehicle turned the corner and that person wasn't hanging on and they ended up falling out at a slowish speed onto the ground, so from there we made some modifications.

You mentioned before there's some additional safety features with this side-by-side?

Yeah, this particular model came with seatbelts, so we've got those in all three seats. And initially it didn't come with any doors and we thought that was a bit of an issue so we contacted the reseller and we managed to buy these doors to bolt onto it. And they've been very successful because all the operators use them and it keeps people inside.

And then there's some other features you mentioned about controlling the speed on farm?

Yeah, well with this one we got from the manufacturer they showed us that we had choices of buying these little control units and instead of the vehicle doing its maximum speed, maybe 70 kilometres an hour plus, we've chosen to install this one here which is a 30 km per hour limit and that we use that throughout the farm on all of the vehicles we have like this.

And the other thing too if you're not wearing a seat belt, the side-by-side's speed is limited as well.

Yeah it goes into a limp mode and it'll go extremely slowly if the belt isn't clicked in.

And with your farm here Mick, you mentioned you have to get across the public road there so what additional safety things do you do?

Yeah so with these vehicles we have them registered and we also wear helmets as well when we're using the road crossing.

So if I'm coming to work here and I'm operating side-by-side, I notice there's some stickers in here from the manufacturer around about some additional safety measures that we need to do when we go on farm.

And that's all part of your training that you need to talk to your workers about it, in your pre-start and look at that here, like the protection for rollover when we're getting too steep an angle, that sort of thing going on there.

And that's all part of your training when you have somebody new on farm. So these safety features all help in protecting the occupants and users of the side-by-sides.

Another thing that we find in accidents on farm is that people attach implements to side-by-sides or they put on tanks or overload side-by-sides in their carrying space. So you always have to be aware of the manufacturer's recommendations in around about how much you can actually load on there, the attachments that you put on to the side-by-side to make sure that you meet the requirements to operate them safely.

Rightio, thanks for your time this afternoon Mick, really appreciates your advice on safety on side-by-sides.

Thank you.

Follow the link below to find a great conversation between some familiar faces in the agriculture sector as they step through the key areas of the Code, share their real life experiences and provide direction on where to find more information to help make sure you and your workers come home safe at the end of the day.