Patent ID: 8528924

Claim:
A rollover protection apparatus, comprising: (a) roll bar assembly including a bottom portion that is mounted to a vehicle frame and a top portion that is moveably mounted to the bottom portion so that the top portion is operable to move between a raised position and a lowered position, the top portion of the roll bar assembly biased toward the raised position, (b) a lock associated with the top portion and the bottom portion operable to secure the top portion in the raised position, the lock movable between a locked position and an unlocked position and biased toward the locked position, (c) a raising and lowering mechanism associated with the roll bar assembly having an operator lever, the operator lever associated with the raising and lowering mechanism such that when an operator applies force to the operator lever, the raising and lowering mechanism unlocks the lock and moves the top portion from the raised position to the lowered position, the raising and lowering mechanism also arranged such that when the operator ceases applying force to the operator lever, the top portion moves from the lowered position to the raised position and the lock moves to the locked position, whereby, an operator using the rollover protection apparatus may apply force to the operator lever to cause the top portion of the roll bar assembly to move to the lowered position to clear a low hanging obstacle and whereby, when the vehicle has cleared the low hanging obstacle, the operator stops applying force to the operator lever thereby allowing the top portion of the roll bar assembly to return to the raised position and the lock to re-engage thereby securing the top portion in the raised position.