Yes, quad bikes are dangerous, but only as dangerous as their riders want them to be – a point forgotten by the critics. 

Or rather, dangerous because they are being abused by their riders. 

Quad bikes, like cars and motor- bikes, become lethal instruments because of human nature, not the manufacturers.

I now have a Ranger but before that I used quad bikes. In that time I had two narrow escapes from serious injury. Who do I blame – myself or the manufacturers?

The blame lies squarely at my feet. I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing when I was.

 I was livid with myself after the second incident because it showed I hadn’t learned a thing from the first incident. So far no repetitions. 

Which leads me to the next topic – admitting your mistakes and taking responsibility for your actions instead of taking the easy way out and blaming someone or something else. 

The same goes for the critics. 

Chris Bonnington, the famous mountaineer, in his book Quest of Adventure, when commenting on a sailor who had committed suicide rather than admit that the round the world yacht race he had taken on was beyond his capabilities, said that it is the hardest thing of all for a very large number of people to admit their mistakes. 

The fact that we all make mistakes seems to have missed them, as with the critics of quad bikes.

There is no shortage of warnings on the dashboards of quad bikes about what not to do as there are on my Ranger, including not allowing children to handle them until they turn 16 years old. 

I agree with that – at 16 one has a much better idea about how lethal a quad bike, car or motorbike is if mishandled. 

Rollover bars on quad bikes may or may not stop serious injury or death. They would certainly make it easier to right a quad bike lying on its side on a steep hillside or gully. 

But that begs the question – what on earth were you doing there in the first place? Have you no brains?

Compulsory helmets? Who is going to supervise the compulsory wearing of helmets on all Australian farms when everyone knows that no one is gong to take notice of that?

Anyway, who would want to wear a helmet in this hot, steamy weather?

It’s time the critics, instead of taking the easy option of blaming the manufacturer the next time someone has a brain fade on a quad bike and kills himself/herself, have a good hard look at their fellow human beings. 

We all do very silly things at various stages of our lives and nothing will change that. 

It’s simply human nature.

Muriel Capel

Barraba