Riding Mower Control Placement Guideline Development

Abstract

Accident investigations and subsequent hazard analysis studies of power mower accidents conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), indicated that the current version of the American National Standard for Turf Care Equipment - Power Lawn Mowers, Lawn and Garden Tractors, and Lawn Tractors - Safety Specifications (ANSI/OPEI B71.1-1986) might benefit from review and/or revision. The analyses indicated control activation, placement and/or operation may have contributed to a number of the accidents reviewed. Accordingly, special emphasis was to be focused on review of Part III: Ride-On Mowers, Lawn Tractors, and Lawn and Garden Tractors, paragraph 13., Controls. This paper describes the approach utilized in development of the inputs to update ANSI/OPEI B71.1-1986. Additionally, the paper describes a brief overview of the voluntary standard review/acceptance process.

Development of a Usability and Functionality Assessment Tool for Riding Lawn Equipment

“…Some previous research has studied RLE usability (Heasly et al, 1989;Yadav and Tewari, 1998;Syuaib et al, 2003), including international and domestic usability standards and guidelines. However, no study has developed systematic and repeatable usability evaluation methods.…”

“…Others have attempted to create standardized RLE evaluation recommendations by reviewing guidelines, accident reports, and interviewing users to develop updated standards (Heasly et al, 1989). This research represents a different approach to conducting an RLE evaluation; however, a comprehensive literature search revealed no usability standards based evaluation tools specific to RLEs.…”