Speeding giant tractors and huge farm machinery

Doesn't safety have to come first tho ? I'm not talking just horsey here, I've been pretty scared in my Landy on the main A road and around town several times. Scared of overtaking for fear the whole lot will topple over with a slight gust of wind.

Just down the road from us a huge load came off last week. All that work, and it's gone down the drain because of the driver ? And being overloaded ?

As for being allowed to drive tractors on roads at 16, with no formal driving licence - that is probably half the problem. Enough said.
 
The trouble with farming these days it is not about the care and welfare of animals or working in harmony with the countryside it is just green industry like every other business in this day and age. A lot of these lads who drive tractors wouldn't know the first thing about getting a backward-facing lamb out of its stressed mother nor do they have control of their dogs half the time. A while back a farmer's collie bit one our horses and caused a septic wound that needed the vet. When we asked him to keep his dog under control did he apologise - did he heck. He waited until we had ridden off down the road then he deliberately chased us with his tractor with the bucket just missing the horses' heads.

Oh yes - we used to love our local farmers but since we moved a few years ago to a new area we have found they breed them differently here. Our neighbour, for example, told us she was entitled to take every one of the bags of roadside grit for herself (they were put out for the local community to use in freezing weather) as she said 'I am a farmer and very important'. Farmers always bleat 'if you don't like it don't live in the country then' but we are just as entitled to be there as they are - especially as our taxes pay for all their subsidies - nice work if you can get someone else to cough up for it. All we horse owners ask is a little consideration a great deal of common sense when hogging the entire road with a machine thaat can be alarming to even the quietest equine.
 
Actually most new tractors can do 50kph & fast tracks can do around 60kph. They are getting bigger & faster.
The equipment is becoming monstrous in size.
I'm a farmer & generally find most farmers are still considerate with horses but you'll get the odd idiot not taking much care same as car drivers. It's pretty difficult training a horse to become accustomed to big machinery like that if they don't see it all the time & its hard finding a farmer who has the time to help get your horse used to it.
I don't ride out much on lanes during "tractor season" as I don't want to meet them myself. Lucky having masses of forestry 10 mins away in lorry.
 
My family farm, and we live on very small roads. I have learnt from a young age to listen - majority of the time you can hear farm kit coming - and trot on or back to the nearest place to get out of the way. My first hack with my new horse I met the combine and tractor towing the header, he took a bit of a fright to the combine but having heard it coming I had him out of the way so it wouldn't have to stop - turned out to be my dad anyway who eased off a bit! I agree with most people on this thread, and I can't find anything more annoying than the people who hack down the middle of the road and don't get out of the way!
 
We have had a problem locally with 16 year olds using the family tractor as their 'run about'. Driving without lights, without due care and attention, driving at horses etc etc. They are not trying to beat the weather, simply cirumventing/bending the law. A local woman complained and the family were warned that the tractor could be seized and crushed if the anti-social behaviour continued. It may be worth the OP informing the local police, as this sounds more like this situation than a hurried farmer trying to get his work done.
 
I can also see this from both sides but some of the responses on here are beyond belief, Yet being on a horse forum you would think there was a good understanding of horses. Unfortunately we all have to share the roads and tolerate each other while using the roads. Not all horses encounter tractors regularly and will react when approached at speed in any direction. A little more tolerance surely wouldn't go amiss! Where I ride most of the tractors are driven by farmers and also contractors but all of them are really good and will wait patiently behind a horse where there is no room to pass without revving up behind them and worrying the horses or riders. However this hasn't always been the case and While yes I do appreciate that farmers have a job to do and it can be a race against the weather when they are driving on a public highway then they have to respect the laws the same as the rest of us and a sorry I was getting my hay/straw/crop in and the horse was in my way is not an excuse in law for causing an accident.
 
patterdale said:
Most tractors are limited to 32kph which is roughly 25mph. That is full pork and it can take a bit of pushing to get there :D

Maybe your farmers have been souping them up on the sly?? I'm picturing tractors with massive spoilers and neon downlights

:D :D
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3eRru7LfMw :D

Cuppatea said:
the solution is simple - get a job behind the bar of your local village pub. make fiends with everybody. Farmers soon slow down, stop, turn off engines if they think there is a chance they might not get served a pint later on.....!!
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Agreed! At one point there was usually a tractor parked outside our pub!
 
Old Boy RIP was fab with all machinery chainsaws quads etc and what the problem is that some of the Machinery are supersize now and I know they have not seen me. Most of our farmers are really considerate but since farms have become industrial size now they contract out more so they do bomb about on our main roads. I am in a 30mph and as with all the other cars they come flying through and set off our flashing sign. To get police speed cameras in our village is nigh impossible(cutbacks)

I do agree that more horses should be traffic proof but perhaps the BIG vehicle drivers do need to keep an eye out for horses etc. Just make sure you wear HI Viz but saying that I know I have not been seen. I sat for 10 mins on a bridle way waiting for them to refuel as I knew they had not seen me. When they did they were lovely!
 
fair enough, which brings me back to - registration plates, working lights, stacking loads too high ?

Talking about safety - about a month ago I was driving slowly (thank god) round a sharp village corner, when I passed a young lad in a tractor. I waived at him as curtesy thankyo for driving slowly, and he waved a little frantically at me. Seconds later I was met with the biggest bit of machinery I have ever seen in my life - it literally took the whole of the village road - and I realised that this waving was the pathetic warning system it had in front of it.

I had to reverse about half a mile to let this thing get past - WHY did it not have a "wide load" vehicle in front and behind ? That was not acceptable - I was shaking with the fact that I nearly lost my landy under it's wheels. Thank god it was not a horse.
 
I can't speak for every farmer in the country and I don't k is what your idea of a too high a load is compared to what a trailer is compared to what a the trailer is legally allowed to carry. Also all our tractors have number plates and working lights
 
Also if it was a rider they most probably could hear machine coming and taken notice of what young lad was waving about and not just ignored him and carried on regardless and would have had time to find a place to get out of the way.
 
Truce drawn ;) I have to say that the farmers who live in our area are really good, the last month just seems to have caused these problems. I have no idea what that big yellow thing was, but it scared the bejeezuz out of me. Maybe the tractor lad would have had time to shout to a rider, but all the same, it was an extremely dangerous bit of driving. And where could the horse have gone to get past ? No where. It literally took up the whole road - they should have been paying for the road to be closed.
 
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One other thing we have round our way is the new Anaerobic digesters and the farmers that are turning over to a new type of corn on cob where the whole lot goes in (no crop is collected). The main cereal crops are all harvested and the fields rolled etc here in Herts BUT we now have to wait for the corn on the cob for the digester so harvesting carries on moreless into late Autumn early winter. This is the second year for this and whereas we use to get a lull Autumn and Winter until spring we now have continued farming on a huge scale. So suffer tractors now for a much longer period.

Yep the traditional farmer is very rare! Countryside is industrialised and only big farmers tend to survive.
 
Where live biggest hazard is cars trying to get to a car drag strip and sat nav sending them wrong down a lane that leads to a bridleway at far too fast and noisy exhaust to go with it. And well said martlin, I have spent many hours delivering lambs caring for them and all else that goes with livestock work to be accused of not caring by people who wouldn't even know the gestation time of a sheep.
 
Forever_broke said:
Also if it was a rider they most probably could hear machine coming and taken notice of what young lad was waving about and not just ignored him and carried on regardless and would have had time to find a place to get out of the way.
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I find this post rather rude tbh, the suggestion that the driver of the landy, just ignored the waving is ludicrous, there was nothing to say WHY he was waving. Why wide loads which are agricultural should be treated any differently from other wide loads is beyond me.
 
Didn't mean to be picking on you in particular lol. I'm on my phone and it just takes ages to reply. And I can't go back and edit otherwise I would have put most points in one post.
 
indie999 said:
One other thing we have round our way is the new Anaerobic digesters and the farmers that are turning over to a new type of corn on cob where the whole lot goes in (no crop is collected). The main cereal crops are all harvested and the fields rolled etc here in Herts BUT we now have to wait for the corn on the cob for the digester so harvesting carries on moreless into late Autumn early winter. This is the second year for this and whereas we use to get a lull Autumn and Winter until spring we now have continued farming on a huge scale. So suffer tractors now for a much longer period.

Yep the traditional farmer is very rare! Countryside is industrialised and only big farmers tend to survive.
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I know very little about arable farming, I admit, and this is also off topic, but:
I didn't think you can grow corn on the cob (as in, crop for the cob ;)) in UK? So all the maize growing involves just combining the lot anyway, be it for silage or for energy crops. I am led to believe that it doesn't get warm enough for long enough at the right time of year for it to be feasible to grow sweetcorn in UK?
 
If someone was waving frantically at me them I would presume there was a hazard up the road. I would either wait or speak to them to find out what was up the road. I am also talking not just about the post but also from experience from other road users when in tractors.
 
martlin said:
I know very little about arable farming, I admit, and this is also off topic, but:
I didn't think you can grow corn on the cob (as in, crop for the cob ;)) in UK? So all the maize growing involves just combining the lot anyway, be it for silage or for energy crops. I am led to believe that it doesn't get warm enough for long enough at the right time of year for it to be feasible to grow sweetcorn in UK?
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We have shed loads of corn on the cob grown here in Devon.In the last few years I would say it's one of the most common veg crops to be seen in fields around here.

Could have got wrong end of the stick as I know probably less than you about crop farming but if you mean bog standard corn on the cob (large plants,cob is in a green sleeve,very nice with a knob of butter type of thing??) then they are grown in abundance here.
 
corn on the cob is grown around here Martlin. Part of the problem as already said is farming has become very industrialised and machinery is just getting bigger and bigger and beyond the capabilities of the lanes upon which they are often driven unescorted. That coupled with often foreign drivers of said machinery who often have very little regard for anything else on the road does need addressing by the highways agencies. Why should farmers have more rights to use and abuse the lanes than any other road users? We all pay tax to use the roads. We could also say as riders that we have little choice but to use the roads due to farmers not wishing us to use their land to ride on so the attitude that horses should all be totally bombproof with farm machinery is rather a simplified idealistic pov and there is a huge difference between the little tractor passing by and the massive combine harvester that takes up the whole width of the lanes.
 
devonlass said:
We have shed loads of corn on the cob grown here in Devon.In the last few years I would say it's one of the most common veg crops to be seen in fields around here.

Could have got wrong end of the stick as I know probably less than you about crop farming but if you mean bog standard corn on the cob (large plants,cob is in a green sleeve,very nice with a knob of butter type of thing??) then they are grown in abundance here.
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I'm so sad that I just had a quick google about it :o
Yes, by corn on the cob I mean sweetcorn, as in maize for human consumption.
It turns out it is grown in moderate amounts, mainly in the south, so you are right :) It is harvested by hand, though ;) so Mr C Harvester does not rush off to get that :D
 
martlin said:
I know very little about arable farming, I admit, and this is also off topic, but:
I didn't think you can grow corn on the cob (as in, crop for the cob ;)) in UK? So all the maize growing involves just combining the lot anyway, be it for silage or for energy crops. I am led to believe that it doesn't get warm enough for long enough at the right time of year for it to be feasible to grow sweetcorn in UK?
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Definitely growing now it is a genetically modified USA strain specially to go into the digester to become electricity for the new feed in tariffs. One local farmer who was completely arable has turned over half his land to grow this(the whole lot goes into the digeseter..to rot)! So the farmer is quids in as he also pushes up the price of his cereal crops which are in short supply anyway. I know this is off topic as well but the point is the harvest season since digesters is twice as long. When I was riding I knew harvesting etc was pretty seasonal and for a few weeks on sunny days!

Big campaign as in other areas to stop it but public cannot do anything at all. Supposedly green?

Hope that makes sense!?!
 
spike123 said:
corn on the cob is grown around here Martlin. Part of the problem as already said is farming has become very industrialised and machinery is just getting bigger and bigger and beyond the capabilities of the lanes upon which they are often driven unescorted. That coupled with often foreign drivers of said machinery who often have very little regard for anything else on the road does need addressing by the highways agencies. Why should farmers have more rights to use and abuse the lanes than any other road users? We all pay tax to use the roads. We could also say as riders that we have little choice but to use the roads due to farmers not wishing us to use their land to ride on so the attitude that horses should all be totally bombproof with farm machinery is rather a simplified idealistic pov and there is a huge difference between the little tractor passing by and the massive combine harvester that takes up the whole width of the lanes.
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Machinery gets bigger and bigger to harvest crops faster and faster - time is money and Joe Public want their food cheap. And NOW.
Lack of escorting vehicles is a concern, I agree.
Do you think that if the drivers were native to UK they would be more considerate, perhaps?
We don't pay road tax for horses.
I don't think I can go into the discussion about farmers not wishing others on their land (sic!) without causing an argument, so I'll skip that. :)
 
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