Hard To Get Reports

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 3

Hard To Get Reports

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, June 16. Research work on tractor safety could be greatly speeded up if farmers would cooperate by reporting accidents, said Mr G. Garden, a research worker for the Agricultural Engineering Institute at Lincoln, in Hamilton today.

Mr Garden, with Mr M. Watson, came to interview a farmer who had rolled his tractor near Auckland.

“That’s how badly we need first-hand information on accidents,” he said. “We get excellent co-operation from the police on tractor fatalities, but dead men cannot talk, and it is difficult to assess the cause of a fatal accident.” Mr Garden said it has been estimated there are nearly 10 tractor accidents to every fatal one. “It is important that we

interview farmers who have had lucky escapes so that our research team can get to the root of the trouble,” he said. He emphasised that all information given to the tractor safety research team is strictly confidential.

“It is probably fear of the consequences that keeps farmers from contacting us." he said. “But they need have no fear whatever.” The team may be reached through local Agriculture Department officers, he said.