Chilling statistics from ACC on farm injuries and fatalities have inspired a Waikato student to try and find a solution to keep farmers safe.
Vehicles and machinery are the number one culprit for farm fatalities.
During the 2017-18 season, quad bikes alone were responsible for 2187 injuries on-farm, costing $13.4 million in ACC claims. There are roughly five deaths per year due to quad bikes in New Zealand and two of these are related to bikes rolling over.
Hamilton student Lachlan Coleman designed a safety device that could prevent rollovers from happening in the first place, and save more lives if a vehicle did roll.
“I have family who are farming, and we have been affected by the devastating effects of a quad bike accident,” Lachlan says.
“My idea was to design a device that could preempt harm and stop rollovers before they happen. There are plenty of products on the market that can reduce harm during an accident, but I couldn’t find any that prevent them from happening in the first place and get help to an accident as fast as possible.”
Lachlan was attending St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton at the time. He had grown up on a horse stud in Bay of Plenty and moved to town before starting secondary school, but he has family dairy farming in Manawatu.
The Prevent-A-Roll device he has designed monitors the angle, acceleration, g-forces and other factors that a vehicle is exposed to and if it approaches a dangerous level, an alarm sounds to warn the driver to take corrective action. It can be retrofitted with vehicle-specific operating parameters to warn of an impending/possible rollover.
“While I was gathering information, farmers explained that any device they used had to be non-invasive, it couldn’t interrupt their usual daily activities and create frustrations,” he says.
“So, when I was working on the initial device, I took it four-wheel driving to give it a good test run, making sure it only reacted when it needed to, when the risk was high.”
He continued to build on the device’s functionality before entering it into the NIWA Waikato Science and Technology Fair. He won the top spot, which came with $1100 in prize money. He also won the NIWA Work Experience Scholarship, which gave him an unique opportunity to work alongside NIWA Hamilton scientists during the 2020-21 summer break.
His work was recognised at the Kudos Science Awards Dinner, held in Hamilton in November, receiving accolades among the science community. And he has plans to continue to build on the features of the device, including incorporating GPS and a system that sends alerts to a designated safety manager and an online portal to view asset information and operator performance.
“Farmers said a device couldn’t rely on cellphone coverage, so currently there are features that you can call and text through a mobile modem in the device, but I want it to have service and connectivity no matter where it goes,” he says.
“That would give it another communication protocol, as well as the mobile, so no matter where a farmer is on their farm they would always have some way to message for urgent help if anyone tipped over. Every minute counts in an emergency,” he says.
If the device is fitted to any farm vehicle, it would be a two-way system so people can locate and track them at any time. And to reduce risk and prevent accidents, Lachlan envisions the device being able to monitor driving technique and send alerts if there are any concerns which could lead to targeted training. The data could also be used to increase efficiencies and reduce running costs.
“There are so many features I’m working on that could benefit farmers. I want to make a fully-integrated system that could connect to a central network and have things like water flow sensors and sensors for gates (for example) connected as well, so everything could be managed simply and easily across the farm,” he says.
Other feedback he gathered for the design stated it had to be retrofitted easily without any electrical knowledge, it must be self-sufficient and run off its own battery, and not need any human intervention as that can be difficult with cold hands or gloves or if someone was stuck under an overturned vehicle.
It could also have a panic or SOS button for emergencies when someone is feeling threatened or unsafe and be able to send GPS coordinates and corresponding messages to seek urgent help.
Lachlan is now studying Mechatronics Engineering at Waikato University and his project is taking a backseat, but he is still chipping away at it. He taught himself how to build everything using YouTube and thorough Googling techniques.
“If you ever have an issue to fix or want to learn something, YouTube and Google have so many tutorials, but you need to be patient, it takes time to learn things,” he says.
Prevent-A-Roll will eventually be available to farmers and help reduce those frightening statistics of farm accidents and fatalities due to vehicle rollover.
