Most parents share a concern about road safety and their children. Rural parents, including farm parents, have special cause for concern. Compared with urban areas:

• almost three times as many young children are killed as passengers in vehicles in rural areas of Australia
• twice as many young children in rural areas are killed as pedestrians in low speed impacts with vehicles.

Yet only one third of children live in regional and remote areas - outside of major cities. Farms are a special, smaller subset of rural Australia and have their own special risks. Children on farms:

• are often driven round farms where roads/tracks may be of poor quality
• regularly use motorbikes for transport or leisure
• are often near tractors, trucks and other mobile farm machinery.

The Child Safety on Rural Properties checklist will assist to identify areas where children may be at risk. Download size: 238 kB.

As our farming workforce ages, more consideration must be given to the safety of our older farmers. Of the 6768 people admitted to NSW hospitals over a 5 year period for injuries sustained on farms, over one third were aged over 55!

For more information on fall prevention for older farmers, download the brochure. Download size: 2.14 MB.