A survey on fatal accidents for overturning of agricultural tractors in Italy

The government agencies that are responsible for labour safety frequently delay the publishing of the figures of the accidents occurred in agricultural sector, including those caused by the overturning of tractors. This is due to the time required to conclude the investigation of each fatal event. The elimination of this delay may not be possible. Thus, the statistics do not satisfy the requirements of effective surveillance of the trend of overturning accidents to implement prompt actions to increase safety. Many web portals have been created in these last years to support weekly or daily newspapers at the local level. A fatal accident due to a tractor overturning is considered to be a significant occurrence. Thus, from 2008 a web observatory was created to determine the current situation of accidents involving tractors that overturned. This method had a significant advantage for obtaining the trend of the statistics related to the main details of each event practically in real time, such as the age, gender and nationality of the victims; the month, day of the week and location of the accidents and the characteristics of the involved machinery. Eight hundred seventy-three fatal accidents were processed in Italy during the survey period. As expected, the average age of the victims was quite high (62 years old). 68 % of the overturning accidents occurred during field operations, and 32 % occurred during transport operations. Eighty-six percent of the fatal events occurred on slopes, but above all ROPS (Roll Over Protective Structure) protection was missing from 61 % of the involved tractors. In the majority of the cases, the tractors were old machines that did not operate in accordance with general and specific safety labour laws.