Has the Risk of Agricultural Tractors Overturning Changed in the COVID Period?

Above all between 2020 and 2022, a large part of the population of our planet was terribly affected by the COVID pandemic, causing millions of victims. The people habits and lifestyles were deeply changed, also as regards work, with a high increase of remote-working. This upheaval slightly affected the agricultural activity that was, is and will be always strictly linked to natural cycles and to the passing of the seasons. In the developed countries the agricultural activity is frequently based on part-time workers; thus, the manpower engagement could be evolved during the pandemic, especially in the lock-down periods. The forced closure of industrial and service sectors lead to a longer time possibly devoted to other activities, with a temporary increase of labour carried out by people not highly skilled in using agricultural machinery. Thus, also the most dangerous related risk factor, i.e. the tractor overturning, could have registered an increase. To properly investigate this possible trend, the independent observatory established since 2008 at DISAA-UNIMI on tractor overturning accidents in Italy, compared the data coming from the period 2008–2019 with those concerning the pandemic period. In 2021 and 2022 the number of fatal tractor overturning did not fall outside the consolidated range of previous period (approx. 100 to 140 fatalities), but in 2020 a significant decrease was recorded. Moreover, during all the pandemic period the average age of the victims decreased, so confirming a more intense working activity of younger operators, probably temporarily engaged in the COVID lock-down time.