Ride ready campaign and competition promotes quad bike safety

Industrial Relations Minister, Grace Grace, has today launched the latest phase of the State Government’s Ride ready advertising campaign with an online competition. 

In Maryborough today for the launch, Minister Grace said with an average 600 people needing hospital treatment every year because of quad bikes, the time had come to really push safety messages to people using these vehicles. 

“Over the past 15 years in Queensland alone, more than 70 people have been killed in quad bike incidents and many more are injured,” Ms Grace said. 

“Tragically that means around a third of quad bike deaths in Australia happen in Queensland and a large number of those are children. 

“We’re working closely with manufacturers and those involved in occupational and recreational quad bike use, but we know that our Ride ready advertising campaign really gets to the hearts and minds of our communities. 

“After we ran the campaign throughout 2016, we commissioned independent market research that showed the adverts were having a heartening result. 

“More people said they believed helmets are a must, more people recognised that doubling on quads is dangerous and more people thought that formal training is valuable to improving safety. 

“But we need to keep these adverts going until the changes in beliefs turn into long-term changes in behaviour.

“Use of quads spikes during holiday periods and that’s why we really push safety messages heading into and during these breaks. 

“The current phase of the Ride ready campaign is up and running online, on social media, in the press and on radio, mainly focusing on wearing helmets and kids not riding adult sized bikes.” 

In conjunction with the advertising campaign, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland has launched a new online challenge to encourage safe riding, with five new quad bike helmets up for grabs for those who take part. 

“The challenge is designed to get people to our website so we can raise awareness of quad bike safety through the information, films and school resources we have published there,” Ms Grace said. 

Anyone using a quad bike should remember these basic rules: 

• always wear a helmet
• don’t let kids ride adult bikes
• don’t carry passengers
• supervise kids at all times
• get training
• check that a quad bike is the best vehicle for the job. 

For more information go to Ride ready  

Media contact: Martin Philip 0427 919 548