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Tractor rollover demonstration shows importance of ROPS

Dale Dobson is a safety outreach educator with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, and he travels the country with a specially built display showing farmers why rollover protection structures and seat belts help save lives.  He says, “We dreamed this up years ago.  We took a real 40-horse John Deere tractor, put it on a trailer with roll bar and seat belt.  We set it up, the rollbar up, it lands on its side and saves the driver.  You fold the rollbar down and you see the driver die.  It’s very visual, right here in-your-face visual.”

And he says using both safety devices is the key.  “The rollbar and the seat belt is a package deal.  The seatbelt is no good without the ROPS and the ROPS is no good without the seatbelt.”

Rollover protection systems and seat belts can be retrofitted to older tractors, and Scott Heiberger with the National Farm Medicine Center says in Wisconsin, more than half of older tractors don’t have rollover protection, but they have a program that helps pay for those retrofitted systems.  “For farmers that register, we’ll reimburse up to 70% or 865-dollars towards the cost of a retrofit.”

The National Farm Medicine Center also gave away a rollover protection system during Wisconsin’s Farm Technology Days.