 Greetings from the United States. My name is Bob Adler and I'm one of the commissioners at the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. I'm sorry I could not be with you in person today, but I was thrilled that Minister Bill Shorten asked if I could take a few minutes to talk to the round table about ATV or what you call quad bikes about the safety of these products. The timing of your comment period and round table relating to quad bike safety coincides nicely with the work we're doing in the United States. Just a week ago my agency held a two day summit relating to ATV summit. The summit was part of a larger effort focused not only on completing our pending ATV regulation, but it was also about how all of the stakeholders can work together to promote ATV safety. At the summit we were privileged to have experts and stakeholders join us from all over the United States and the world, including a number of panelists from Australia. I'm also aware of some Australian commenters that were not able to make the trip, but who indicated their desire to submit written comments for the record, which by the way remains open until November 14th. On behalf of everyone at the CPSC I want to assure you that your fellow countrymen were extremely well received and you are always a welcome part of this or any other conversation about product safety. As a quick note I need to make clear that CPSC's jurisdiction covers only consumer products and does not extend to products used exclusively or mainly in a work environment. I say this because from what I understand a large percentage of the deaths and injuries associated with quad bikes in Australia take place on farms, which I gather is usually a workplace setting. In fact I understand that quad bikes are the leading cause of injury and death on Australian farms. That said there's no question that there are too many deaths and serious injuries on ATVs and quad bikes regardless of whether they are occurring at work or at play. As we all know it's often the same injury scenario irrespective of the setting and we in the United States are seeing the same problem you face. Specifically there are over 10 million four wheel ATVs in use in the United States. I believe they are among the most dangerous discretionary use product for children in our jurisdiction. Each year there will be at least 700 funerals because of an ATV related incident. And while I realize the population size of our country is very different I understand that the US death rate is more than twice the rate you experience. As a regulator, as a policymaker and as a parent I find these numbers simply unacceptable. And sadly since 1982 the CPSC has received more than 11,000 reports of ATV related fatalities almost 3,000 of which have been children. Our injury numbers are even worse. Each year for every 100 ATVs in use there is more than one visit to an emergency room for an injury related to riding an ATV. Almost one out of four of these more than 100,000 emergency room patients will be a child under 16. And particularly disturbing to me at least one in five emergency room patients are likely to have been a passenger on the ATV despite explicit warnings on the vehicles that there should never be a passenger on single rider ATVs. But as tragic and significant as these numbers may be their only data points and what to do next falls on all of us in the ATV safety community. While I fully support efforts to educate riders to reduce risky behaviors and to increase the use of safety equipment, ultimately we need a safer vehicle. To that point I was thrilled to read that after the last round table you held in July you released a discussion paper calling for submissions on the review of design and engineering controls for quad bike safety. We're going to be monitoring your activities closely with the hope that what you learn can help us back here in the United States. I don't believe that ATV safety is an unreachable goal but I do believe it is an extremely difficult one. What gives me a degree of optimism is the fact that our recent summit which brought together a wide variety of interested and committed stakeholders produced a lot of useful information and creative ideas. I think it was a big step in the right direction and it sounds like the actions that are taking place in both the governmental and non-governmental spaces in Australia are moving in the same direction. There's no question that it is in the interest of everyone involved manufacturers, researchers, inventors, safety advocates, riders or parents of riders to work as one large ATV safety community to find common ground and common sense solutions to the dangers presented by ATV use. Only by moving in the same direction with the same purposes will we be able to reach our safety goals and reach those goals together. Thank you for your attention and your time and good luck with the rest of the round table.