A new safety device for ATVs has attracted a lot of attention in New Zealand, despite not yet being on the market. Vernon Suckling, the inventor of the device, took the Fieldays Golden Standard Innovation Award when he designed a roll-over bar that resists crushing, with the judges agreeing that it had lots of appeal.
The device has been named The Lifeguard and has been based on an arc system used in Roman times. It can deflect around a person if there is an impact with the quad bike. The arc is made up two fibre cables, both of which have a braking strain of 3.5 tonnes. The device is intended to hold a quad bike off the floor in the event that it rolls over.
Suckling said that he would start mass production of the device after all international standards had been met. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the innovation committee of Fieldays said that the roll frame has huge potential internationally. He went on to say that potential was there for ATVs in the farming industry, such as farm quads.
The roll frame for quad bikes was just one of many innovations that were awarded at Fieldays. An award for changing the face of farming, the Premier Merit Award, was awarded to Janet Brooker from Biofert who designed a natural method for turning animal waste into compost, producing a soil conditioner with high nutrients. The youngest award winner was just twelve years old, as Jasmine Creighton took the Young Inventor of the Year thanks to her Pigtail Transporter, which she invented for a project at a science fair.