Quad bike death the second in a month

The Department of Labour is investigating the second quad bike death in Northland in just over a month after a farmer died near Hikurangi.
Senior Constable Russell Rawiri, from Hikurangi police, said Jack McInnes, 64, died when the quad bike he was on rolled on Saturday evening.
Mr Rawiri said Mr McInness went out on the bike about 5.30pm on Saturday to spray weeds on his farm, about 8km east of Hikurangi. Family members noticed he had not returned by 8pm and went looking for him. He was found a short time later.
Mr McInnes was riding his quad bike on a steep hill when his vehicle rolled and pinned him face down, he said.
The death was the fourth quad bike fatality in Northland in the past five years and the second in the region in just over a month. Suzanne Claudia Ferguson, 62, was towing a trailer of haylage when her quad bike is thought to have rolled on steep terrain, pinning her underneath on August 9 at a Gammon Rd farm near Awarua, about 20km south of Kaikohe.
Quad bike safety is a focus of the Department of Labour's Health and Safety Business plan this year with farming accidents on the rise.
According to ACC statistics, 13 farmers died in accidents on New Zealand farms in 2009 - the equivalent to one dying every 28 days. A further 18,600 were injured - equating to an agriculture worker being injured every 34 minutes. The injuries cost $12.4 million in ACC claims last year.
The most common causes of death or injury were from quad bikes and farm machinery.
Of the 13 killed, three died in quad bike accidents.
According to research by Otago University, in any one year, riders will lose control of quad bikes on 12,645 occasions, resulting in 1400 injuries, not all of which will be registered as workplace injuries with ACC.
New Zealand coroners had repeatedly asked for law changes to make it mandatory for quad bikes to be fitted with roll bars and seat belts and to force riders to wear helmets.