CLEARLY, THE IMPOSITION of compulsory roll-over protection to be fitted to all ATVs coming into Australia from October 2021 has ruffled some feathers.
In October 2019, the ACCC announced that the fitment of roll-over protection devices would become mandatory for all new ATVs brought into Australia from October 2021.
The only example country the ACCC relied upon for their decision to make roll-over protection compulsory is their belief that the fitment of these devices is mandated for all Utility ATVs in Israel.
This is simply not true, says the FCAI.
Nonetheless, an ACCC spokesperson was quoted recently in the media saying that “Israel has had the requirement for roll-over protection in place for quite some time.”
The truth is that while Israel did mandate the fitment of roll-over protection devices, they became more flexible in 2013 (the rules, presumably, not the roll-over protection devices!)
In fact, a major ATV manufacturer has been supplying utility ATVs – without fitting roll-over protection devices to them – to the Israel market since 2014.
Brad Ryan, COO of Yamaha, recently confirmed that the company does not sell ATVs with OPDs anywhere in the world – and that includes Israel.
“In addition, to our knowledge Yamaha products are not parallel imported into Israel and fitted with OPDs,” Mr Ryan said.
“Yamaha is, as we speak, licensed to sell Utility ATVs without OPDs in Israel, and has been doing so since 2014. I think once Israel realised their OPD rules were too restrictive they re-negotiated the licensing rules. So the Israel thing is misinformation. I don’t know where it came from, but rumour has it the information was given to the ACCC by an OPD manufacturer, and presumably the ACCC simply didn’t check,” Mr Ryan said.