Kentucky Injury Prevention
and Research Center Publicaions

Use of Fatal and Non-Fatal Tractor Overturn Photos to Promote Favorable Attitudes About ROPS and Seatbelts

V. Brandt, T. Struttmann, H. Cole, L. Piercy, J. Muehlbauer

Sixty-three Kentucky farmers have been killed in tractor overturns in the past 5 years. The fatality rate for the agricultural industry in Kentucky is 40/100,000 compared to the national rate of 22/100,000. In most cases tractor-related fatalities could have been prevented if the tractor had been equipped with a Rollover Protective Structure (ROPS) and the operator had worn a seatbelt.

In collaboration with the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Project, the Community Partners for Healthy Farming Project staff have developed an exercise to promote favorable attitudes about ROPS. Photos of overturned tractors are used to initiate discussion in a small group of farmers. In these groups participants are asked what they think happened. A facilitator then reads the facts about the case in terms of the physical details of the case as well as the overall emotional and economic impact of the event on surviving family members.

This poster presentation will show non-ROPS and ROPS-equipped tractor overturns, instructions on how to conduct the exercise, and a summary of each case. This activity has been cited as a motivating factor when individual farmers decide to retrofit their tractors with ROPS and seatbelts.

Comments to Mark Schneider, Last Modified: July 9, 2001 by JP
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