The nation has a quad bike fatality issue and agencies are stepping up to push for farmers to take better care while riding the vehicles.

Eleven people died in the 19 months between January 2022 and July this year and four people have been killed by quad bikes in the past nine days alone.

Talking to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, Safer Farms chairwoman Lindy Nelson slammed the statistics as not good enough.

"We're not improving," she said.

Quad bikes, she said, did not have the safety features of cars, which have airbags and modern protection measures.

Nelson’s main concern was many in the farming community believed that a farmer's experience could keep them safe most of the time.

"But when things go wrong, we cannot fail safely so our lives are lost. And for those families now, there will be no family member around the Christmas table - communities have lost loved ones and our hearts bleed for this."

Hosking suggested farmers could mitigate against a fatal accident on a bike, such as by wearing a helmet and modifying the vehicle.

Nelson agreed, stating extensions have successfully been added to bikes for improved safety.

"Some [farmers] have removed quad bikes from their farms, replacing them with side-by-sides. Electric two-wheelers are a great option for flat-land farming, but the main thing is exactly what you said - you need rollover protection," she said.

"That is the ability to if you fail, you fail safely and create a case for survival. It'll probably still hurt but it hopefully won't take your life."

Nelson said it wasn't just high country suffering the effects of quad bike mistakes but those in flatter regions like the Taranaki or Canterbury.

"We're humans and we make mistakes - a momentary lapse in attention, a dog runs out, the lands suddenly change as we've had massive weather events around New Zealand so where there wasn't a hole one day there was suddenly a hole this day," she explained.

"The lead-up to Christmas is a hugely busy time of year, we know 24 per cent of these accidents occurred under stress.:

Hosking asked if regulation was the answer - but Nelson suggested it was less about red tape and more about better decision-making from quad bike users.

She said regulations would need to involve consultation with farmers to avoid any unintended consequences when it came to replacements.

"Right now there's three key things for farmers to think about. Could this happen to you, what would it mean to your family and what is the one thing you could do today to reduce risk," she told Hosking.

"And for me, it's to consider the cost of their life versus the price of rollover protection, and that's what we need to do today.