[judge dredd]

Have you noticed that when travelling on back country lanes there seems at time to be a plethora of farm vehicles moving about on those roads from one field to another. Have you also noticed not only the speed used on these leviathans ,. yes they are no longer nice cute little red tractors but bloody big machines with 8ft rear wheels capable of 40 mph and it seems that they are doing that all over the place.

Now understanding that they can be or have trailers and other attachments that can make them nearly 9 ft wide and many yards long that the roads they travel down can be narrow, some no more than 12/14 feet wide it then becomes apparent that someone has to give way if met on that road.... and its not being the tractor.

AND FINALLY whilst police officers stop us for smaller number plates and having loud exhausts or failing to display a tax disc or the mere fact that we are motorcyclists and therefore fair game FOR ANYTHING. we may be having rough time speaking to that officer whilst a tractor blazes by and its got an attachment at the rear or to the front that if one come into contact with, can rip out your guts, decapitate you and split you down the middle before chewing you up, spilling your guts all over the place and spewing you out the other side.

Now all this is obvious to any motorcyclists but not to , dare I say , the new to the road cyclist. what can be done about it. Apparently the law is blind when it comes to farmers and HGV drivers breaking the laws of the land. After all we all need food and farmers provide that and we all need goods and 97% of goods go by HGV. So maybe that is the reason they are protected by the plod and the courts

I make this point and I hope that it doesn't stop here. I hope that it is taken on board by organisations and others such as Road Safety Officers and police who have safety on the roads as a priority to their members or just ordinary members of the public.

IT IS AN OFFENCE TO USE ANY VEHICLE [ and that includes trailer or other attachments] ON A ROAD THAT CAN CAUSE DANGER TO OTHER ROAD USERS. [ Sect 44 RTA 1988. Con and use regs. 1986 and The Road Vehicle [Authorisation of Special Types][general] Order 2003 . Article 21 [5]

Anyone who wants to know whet the law says just have a look at the Dept. of transport website and look at.. the Information sheet on AGRICULTURAL VEHICLES; DANGEROUS PROJECTIONS.

I hope that you read it and complain next time you are faced with such a danger and lets make our country roads safer for all.

[smudger]

Years ago, a mate of mine was driving to work at 06.00, he came round a corner and ran right into the back of a massive slow moving harvester, which had no lights on it, and it was dark. He woke up a day later in hospital, with the police waiting to charge him with dangerous driving?A truck that size should have had an escort, front and back, to warn other road users, but the farmer never had anything like that, and he got away with it??

[judge dredd]

agricultural vehicles dangerous machinery.

Several years ago a rider went round a bend to fast. it was probably his mistake and he came upon a farm tractor and trailer turning into a field on its nearside. The driver of the tractor had pulled out onto the wrong side of the road in order to make the turn into the field with the longer load. Needles to say the load was a dangerous one and the motorcyclists hit it head on. Apparently..... and this is only hearsay..... it nearly cut him into 5 pieces and it took about 6 hours to clear the road.

Do we really want these so obviously dangerous vehicles on our roads.... if they were to drive through any town, like they do through villages, i am sure that public opinion would be supportive of some form of ban or control... greater than there is now.

What i would like to suggest... as i am not anti farming or anti farmers. and i understand that they have a job to do. The legislation by the DfT calls for them to cover any apparatus that is so dangerous or to remove it. Both i feel would be difficult to do as this equipment would then have hard covers ie metal and i dont believe that any have been made for this purpose or it means the farmer going to great lengths in time and monies and organisation to have the implement transported to the various fields where that equipment is needed.

None of these proposals seem to me to be applicable or fair. so why not go for an escort. When animal farmers are taking cattle over road for milking they have a number of helpers and sometimes use a trike or quad bike to help as escorts.

So what i propose is the same as if it were cattle or indeed a long or wide load that , dependant upon where the attachment is, be it in front of or at the rear of a tractor, that an escort trike or quad bike or car or similar vehicle used with say a flashing amber light and beeping sound. That escort be placed at a reasonable distance at the front or the rear of said agricultural vehicle and limited to say a maximum of 20 mph. Other road users would then come across the escort vehicle and react accordingly without hitting any dangerous and illegal vehicles.

Then we will all be safer.

Your ideas and if knowledge of any incident involving dangerous implements your stories please.

[Santa]

My idea is that when you are driving, biking or walking on a country road, you should be taking the proper precautions and moving at the appropriate speed for the conditions. You should approach all blind bends as if there may be a combine harvester coming the other way.

Farmers who overload their vehicles, fail to secure their loads properly, drive too fast or dangerously should be prosecuted, but other road users should understand that those roads were put there for the local population, farmers as well, to get around. When you go out to admire the scenery, you should be aware that if it wasn't for the farmers, it would not be there.

[judge dredd]

Dangerous farming practices

i am all for sharing the road with whoseover wants to use it be it for commuting, pleasure or work but whilst i am on the road and obeying the laws of this land i dont want anyone doing something which is totally against the law and dangerous to me or any other persons. Thats what some farmers are doing almost every day of their working lives. If they carried on like that with total negligence and disregard for the law and lack of forethought of the outcome of their activities in their farm yard then the Health and safety brigade would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

The roads are dangerous enough without this illegal and constant use of dangerous machinery on our and i mean all our roads systems. What might by some be considered farm lanes are not the preserve of the use by Farmers only They are highways paid for at public expense. They are adopted roads and free for the use of all Not just the chosen few who live and work in the countryside.

In your last paragraph you hit the nail on the head, if any vehicle, motorcycle or car or tractor was committing a moving traffic offence and one which was considered dangerous to any other road users be it pedestrian, horse riders etc then you would want some action to be taken against the perpetrators for those offences. As you say Farmers should be treated just like anyone else and reported for offences that are being committed.

Just a little history.... going back to the days of the little red tractor farms were worked locally around the farmhouse and there was little need to use the roads we and they now enjoy but field to field and down unmade un adopted lanes. this little tractor went to and fro and very few new of it. It and its machinery very rarely left its own domain. Then changes took place, farms got bigger, some went out of business or changed from cattle to agriculture. Now we have fields being owned or rented miles away from the central farm and the need to travel by road has become every increasingly greater. as a result farmers are travelling miles in order to do their work efficiently and effectively. Farmers fields became bigger and so did the machinery to cope with it so we rarely now see this little red tractor but some monolithic machine with 1000's of horsepower. The law has not taken this into account over the last 30/40 years and it was never envisaged that farmers would have to farm over such an increased are.


It would be better if we can all share the road and all demonstrate restraint and regard for the law and the rights of all and not make the roads more dangerous than they already area.

[ficklejade]

I agree with Santa's comments.

On the question of escorting large or potentially dangerous machinery (due to it's function), whilst this may be desirable, I would fear for the escorts, given the preponderance of a lot of drivers to not think about potential dangers in a given area. I know a couple of very busy A roads that have traffic lights to stop traffic when cows being shifted from field to milking parlour and back. I've seen large flocks of sheep being shifted under escorts but sometimes it's not just practicable.

Here, it's just not on to have escorts. For a start, a good part of our livestock are free roaming, so represent a permanent hazard. We don't have combines - but they are pretty large and usually fairly obvious. Where I used to live, they were mostly working at night with huge great lights on them, including when crossing the highway between fields. And surely it's normal to expect combines during harvesting time?

I can understand judge dredd's real concerns but fear that it comes down in the end to educating and making people aware rather than putting on the cotton wool. I know there are horrific consequences on occasions, though not encountered one with a farm vehicle - other than an accident on a farm where something broke - and would certainly not wish this on anyone, but sometimes the buck has to stop so to speak and all road users have to wise up to their responsibilities.

In this latter respect, I hear we are, at last, getting police prosecutions of the moron element who can't be bothered to read the rules on single track roads. How some people can ignore ambulances and fire engines on blues and twos and with sirens I do not know.

[Santa]

I am sorry but Judge Dredd is overstating his case. Sure, farmers could do more to avoid driving on public roads with spiky bits sticking out of their machines, and spreading mud everywhere but....

Those lanes and fields are the farmer's workplace. they have to make a living from growing the stuff we eat and selling it for a profit. Many things conspire to make it difficult, not least the weather. If the farmer has to dismantle his machine every time he wants to drive down a lane, it will soon become uneconomic.

I think JD wants to go back to some romantic dream of little red tractors. Why not go further back and use teams of horses? Oh! I bet he doesn't like them either - nasty unpredictable animals dropping dung all over the place.

I do quite a lot of my driving on country lanes. I frequently meet huge farm implements on them. Every time I do, we manage to co-exist without conflict - sometimes I have to reverse a little way, sometimes the farmer will take to the ditch, but we manage and part with a friendly wave or toot.

Either learn to live with it, or stay on motorways and trunk roads.

[judge dredd]

Dangerous agricultural trailers

looks like i have a debate on my hands. Not only getting it on the forum but also in private messages .

i dont think that i have overstated anything. i have put my position plain and clear and backed it up with history and positive argument.

At the moment i appear to be in the minority but debate like this takes all forms and an appreciation and articulation of differing points of view is healthy.

I am not going into slagging someone off or telling someone to stay away from "Farmers Road" because that would ludicrous and insulting to suggest that just because someone doesn't like something then they should avoid it , go away and it will all go away. That argument is erroneous and doesnt have anything to do with the subject matter. It does however point to the argument being lost when one has to resort to such comments. Its not helpful to anyone.

My original post still stands . Some farm vehicles and farmers or other drivers are breaking the law and also disregarding the good advice of the Department of Transport. There is nothing wrong with bringing that to attention of the public.

i havn't slagged farmers off i just mentioned by facts what is the law and what i have seen and read to have happened over the years. I dont necessarily want, tho it would be nice to see, little red tractors buzzing about doing their job but those days are far gone. It would also be nice to know that the next time i and others ride our motorcycles or bicycles or rode our horses slowly round a bend on a quiet lane they are not confronted with 9 foot wide heavy machinery with a dozen and a half or so rotor blades being about a foot in diameter and at a height that if i come of my machine i will end up as mincemeat that only a shovel will remove me from the tarmac.

Is that to much to ask. That the Law of the land is obeyed. I think not...... I hope not.

Let the debate continue...

[Santa]

Actually, I think the debate has run its course. I have no idea what anyone may have said in a pm - none from me by the way, and 'slagging people off' is not my style at all.

I imagine you were surprised that we didn't all agree with you.

[judge dredd]

agricultural vehicles dangerous machinery.

Thanks for that Santa I believe that it has. Those that have contributed have in the main agreed that if offences are being committed that something needs to be done, whether its police intervention. advice or prosecution.

Others maybe are undecided how best to remove the danger off the road and I still go with an escort vehicle. it could be a car or something similar at front or at the rear of the offending equipment. I certainly don't want a guy with a red flag walking it on the tarmac.

I have brought this to the attention of a number of persons who have looked at the topic and as its staying on more will be able to read it and become aware of the dangers . which is a good thing. New cyclists in particular.

I also subscribe whole heartedly with the comments that the road is shared by all and that we have to get along. Great or greater care is necessary on minor country roads and an appreciation of the dangers one might face should cause some to at least slow down and to take that care.

For those who still wish to contribute and maybe give personal experiences please do so.

Thanks again for all the contributions.

[Dennis W]

Drivers of agricultural vehicles seem to think that the Laws of the road do not apply to them.

[Dennis W]

Many tractors drive FORWARD with their REVERSING lights ON, why do the police never stop them?

[Beelzebub]

Dennis

Those are almost certainly work lights rather than reversing lights. However, just as illegal!