VALE ALLAN "KIWI" ANDREW

[Blackhawk]

 I Don't know if anyone has heard but; Allan "Kiwi" Andrew from Old Station at Raglan, Queensland passed away late yesterday after an accident with a quadbike rollover at the Old Station property.

 

He has been a good friend to a mass of people over the years and will be sorely missed by everyone

 

Kiwi has been one of the mainstays of the Old Station Flyin since it's inception and is known to everyone that attends with his white Chrysler Centura Convertible attending to the smooth running of the many operations at the Flyin 

 

Fly high with your eagles my good friend 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Blackhawk

[Blueadventures]

Very sad. A great bloke will be missed.

[Yenn]

Such a sad thing to hear. Being an Old Station ex member I knew him well. Great bloke, will be sorely missed, also his old Cessna with the tractor tyres. 

Safe in the air and let down by those well known killer quad bikes.

[farri]

R.I.P. KIWI.

 

To call Quad Bikes well known killers, is like calling Ultralight Aircraft, well known killers.  

 

I used a Quad Bike for many years in my work as a farmer! I still have one and ride it regularly and like my Drifter (and other Ultralights I`ve flown) to date, I`ve never so much as been scratched by any of them! that`s not to say I couldn`t make a mistake or several and become a statistic.

 

Investigate the accident and find the reals reason that caused it. 

[onetrack]

I'm with Frank here, I've owned and used both quad and 3-wheeler bikes for years, and never had a problem. But they banned 3-wheelers as "killers".

Everything with an engine in it can kill you if you're careless, poorly trained, start "hooning" with it, or use inappropriate speed for the conditions. 

 

Having said that, my quads and 3 wheelers in the 1980's were limited to around 80 kmh and didn't have vast power output. They were 250 and 350cc. Now we have quads with 1000cc and more engines, and they'll do 100-110kmh.

It's a recipe for disaster making them bigger, and much more powerful, and much faster - without any occupant protection. Then owners put young kids on them, thinking they're just a toy. The problem is, they aren't.

 

I can recall a U.S. forum member telling us how he drove into a U.S. farm where the family had let a 7 yr old drive a 600cc quad bike. The result was predictable, the kid promptly killed himself.

This bloke said there was an all-encompassing pall of gloom over that farm, that he couldn't get away from fast enough. And all because that family didn't understand that big quad bikes aren't toys that you let kids ride.

 

Then there's always the possibility of mechanical failure, too. A farmer mate bought a secondhand, big Polaris quad bike, and was barrelling around the farm on it, at around 90kmh.

He pulled up to open a gate, and as he slowed to about 15kmh, a front ball joint snapped, the entire front wheel folded under, and he came to a very sudden halt, gouging a furrow in the ground.

He went a whiter shade of pale and swallowed hard, when he thought about what would've happened, if that ball joint had let go while he was doing 90kmh. You have much less protection on these things.

[facthunter]

High centre of gravity trikes are just as bad. The square cornered tyres don't help as soon as one wheel lifts the other side digs in.  Nev

[turboplanner]

Whenever subjects like this come up people start qualifying the risk, or assuming they won't do what someone else did, but Quad bikes are dynamically unstable, and most fatalities are at relatively low speeds rather than at 100 km/hr cruise, and involve weight transfer at the wrong time followed by a roll over or somersault where the bike lands on the person who is crushed to death.

 

In some cases the issue is dynamic instability due to incorrect weight distribution, and it wouldn't surpise me if someone somewhere has put a 200 litre drum on the small tray at some stage, almost guaranteeing a flip at anything but the mildest throttle.

 

I covered the $12 million payout public liability case in 2016 in the thread Pulblic Liability, so the days of riding quad bikes without rollover protection are long gone.

 

What has crept in for farms on older Quad bikes where forward speed is relatively low is a vertical bar which bolts securely on to the tow bar area. It acts like a tractor ROPS in a rear wheel climb over and holds the rear of the quad bike off the ground in a roll over.

 

Neither roll cage nor pole are safe without a seat belt because both frames can crush you.

 

The Industry has been moving towards lower, side by side seating which gives the dynamic handling we are familiar with in motor vehicles.

The tray is further forward and only about half takes cantilever loads. I have seen a photo of one with a round bale on the tray, amd that's a bit of a question mark, but this Polaris photo shows where they are going - two people, tools, and a trailer for loads up to 1/2 tonne.

 

[tillmanr]

The shortcomings with the lower middle is the effect it has on ramping over lumps bumps and edges off road 

If you don’t need to do this then a 4wd utility is better.
I doubt the safety of 1/2 to 1 tonne of water being towed by the displayed ATV. I have a “tall” ATV and hesitate to tow anything approaching 1/2 tonne.

Edited October 9, 2021 by tillmanr
Additional text

[turboplanner]

25 minutes ago, tillmanr said:

The shortcomings with the lower middle is the effect it has on ramping over lumps bumps and edges off road 

If you don’t need to do this then a 4wd utility is better.
I doubt the safety of 1/2 to 1 tonne of water being towed by the displayed ATV. I have a “tall” ATV and hesitate to tow anything approaching 1/2 tonne.

Tow rating for the Ranger 570 is 680 kg, payload in tray is 420 kg, so not a round bale capacity, ground clearance 279 mm.

That doesn't mean is it suitable for your application; I just picked it at random to show the different weight distribution and occupant protection.

As you say, your application may still require short WB.

[Flightrite]

Quad bikes are well known to be killers, ask anyone in the EMS field, I know I’ve seen the work those dangerous things do! RIP, another one taken by them☹️

[jackc]

When mustering cattle or any animals, be it quads or motorcycles side by sides etc, ‘target fixation’ is your enemy……you become fixated on your target and your allocation of keeping it all upright suffers and you miss seeing an obstacle or dangerous situation and it can bite you, with fatal results 😞 

[Yenn]

We all know the dangers of quad bikes and I am sure Kiwi knew them just as much as we do.  We don't know exactly what happened, but in my estimation Kiwi was aware of any dangers. It could have been a moments inattention, or a mechanical failure, who knows, but Kiwi was careful with all he did in my experience.

[Blackhawk]

55 minutes ago, Yenn said:

We all know the dangers of quad bikes and I am sure Kiwi knew them just as much as we do.  We don't know exactly what happened, but in my estimation Kiwi was aware of any dangers. It could have been a moments inattention, or a mechanical failure, who knows, but Kiwi was careful with all he did in my experience.

Spot on Yenn.

 

The accidnet happened at a creekbed at dusk and Kiwi could have disturbed some kangaroos or some cattle and rolled trying to avoid them; unfortunately we never know what happened, except that we lost a very good friend.