Quad bike manufacturers have threatened to pull out of the Australian market over new safety laws, but the regulator is holding firm.

Honda, Yamaha and Polaris have all said they will have to pull their quad bikes from sale in Australia since the ACCC announced all quad bikes must have operator or roll-over protection devices.

Honda says it is impossible for it to meet the new safety standard.

ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh has denied the claim, saying there is no reason that the bikes could not be imported into Australia and fitted to standard.

“Israel have had the requirement for roll-over protection in place for quite some time,” he said this week.

“The dealers went straight to the manufacturer and did what they call parallel imports.

“I feel for the dealers, but our job was to improve product safety and save lives.

“We deliberately designed the standard around the existing roll-over protection devices and left it quite open.

“We didn't specify the exact requirement, with the only proviso being that it had to meet or exceed the existing roll-over protection devices.

“It was made as easy as possible and in reality manufacturers could simply have the dealers install an available roll-over protection device to new bikes and they would be compliant with the code.”

Mr Keogh said bigger picture is that quad bikes are over-represented in fatality stats.

“Quad fatality rates are almost double the fatalities associated with motor vehicles,” he said.

“There is an obvious issue there in terms of their safety.”

He also said that the quad market in Australia is shrinking.

“When you look at a manufacturer like Polaris, they had observed quite strong increases in demand for side-by-side vehicles, which have the fully enclosed cage,” he said.

“The statistics in our report showed the demand was shifting quite significantly, the last few years have seen considerable growth in the volume of sales of side-by-side vehicles. and a shrinking number of sales of new quad bikes.

“It may well be that is a factor in the decision making to exit the market.”

Meanwhile in NSW, farmers have bought 1918 new side-by-side vehicles and 873 rider safety devices including roll bars for quad bikes with the help of a $2000 rebate.

SafeWork NSW has been offering rebates to help reduce on-farm deaths, pushing vehicles that the NSW Government sees as a safer option to quad bikes on farms.