tractor speed limits, a consultation

[Gary Prentice]

I

 

I drove 50-300HP tractors from age 17 to 19. Anyone who has driven a tractor will tell you of the horror of seeing the car coming towards you turn it's lights onto full beam. It's 30 yards away from you, and suddenly a car flies past your offside door and in front of you, missing the oncoming car by an inch.

 

It's crazy. Simply crazy. I can almost guarantee the above scenario if I take my old tractor out along the nearest stretch of straight A road. The vast, vast majority of the time, car drivers are at fault.

 

 

 

 

Haven't driven a tractor for many years now, but I know what you mean.

 

The thing I remember most was the approach to traffic lights. You'd be braking gently for a red light when some idiot would overtake, cut you up just to be in front.

 

Of course because he's BMW could stop in ten feet, your tractor and loaded ten ton grain trailer 'must' be able to do the same. Plenty of brown trouser moments with a jack-knifing trailer.

[Daniël Bos]

 

The thing I remember most was the approach to traffic lights. You'd be braking gently for a red light when some idiot would overtake, cut you up just to be in front.

 

 

I've had that a few (...) times, once that exact scenario played out in front of the police station, the car was a police car and about a foot shorter by the time I'd stopped.

 

I pulled into the police carpark, ready for a good bollocking, the driver got out (furious and near boiling point) and was about to start laying into me when about a dozen other police came out the building roaring with laughter. They'd seen it all from the canteen and proceeded with a generous and lengthy piss-taking of the driver whilst one of them got me a coffee and cake to "recover from the shock".

[Marko]

To be honest I do take the attitude that I'm driving a big machine people will move, I make people get out of the way...

 

Just for balance and again speaking as a farmer...

 

I do know how difficult it is to manoeuvre big machines down both single track country lanes and through villages, towns and cities. I know that most motorists will not appreciate just how difficult it is winding a big rig past parked cars when the schools are tipping out but I do not expect people to move out of my way let alone make them.

 

I do not believe anyone is going to go hungry because I don't have my foot flat on the loud pedal all the time.

 

Harvest time IS important and very often the windows of opportunity ARE very small but that does not give farmers any more rights on the road. It is not about how fast you can go it is about how fast you can stop.

[doobin]

Haven't driven a tractor for many years now, but I know what you mean.

 

The thing I remember most was the approach to traffic lights. You'd be braking gently for a red light when some idiot would overtake, cut you up just to be in front.

 

Of course because he's BMW could stop in ten feet, your tractor and loaded ten ton grain trailer 'must' be able to do the same. Plenty of brown trouser moments with a jack-knifing trailer.

 

Another classic. Also- indicating right to turn into the field. As you start to turn the wheel, the same BMW flies past you, having overtaken from five cars back.

 

I had a beauty on the A27 once. I was driving a telehandler down to Fareham, and some old duffer (presumably with 'grandpa rights' to tow a trailer) pulled in in front of me with the caravan. I braked so hard that I hit the windscreen. I should have just let the forks open the bloody thing up.

 

It's funny at first, then it starts to get to you. That same season some dozy bint found herself coming up way to fast behind a tractor and bale trailer, complete with beacon at rear of trailer. Panicked, went to swing out into the outer lane, but didn't quite make it. Unfortunately her friend was in the passenger seat, which went under the trailer. She ruined untold lives that night- killed her best friend, and the pigman (who was only driving the tractor because the weather was catching us) ended up in therapy for two years. If the boss hadn't pretty much forced him to keep his job for his mental wellbeing then I don't like to think what he might have done to himself.

[peatff]

We go camping in a trailer tent which I pull with whatever car I have at the time and at harvest time in Lincolnshire the tractor and trailer or combine harvester I end up following for miles is usually accompanied by a support vehicle or two driving in a convoy. Now if they were at a distance from each other it would be easy to overtake them one at a time but when they are crammed together they become a mobile roadblock. I am happy to follow them at 40mph or thereabouts (I'm retired I've got all day ) but tagged onto the back of their little convoy I become part of the problem and car drivers get reckless trying to overtake. I very often pull into a layby to let them go and see that I am not included in the delay, I can keep up with most things at the legal limit with a trailer which a lot of car and van drivers do not know is lower than the limit for a car or van not towing.

Edited December 14, 2013 by peatff

[haforbes]

Just for balance and again speaking as a farmer...

 

I do know how difficult it is to manoeuvre big machines down both single track country lanes and through villages, towns and cities. I know that most motorists will not appreciate just how difficult it is winding a big rig past parked cars when the schools are tipping out but I do not expect people to move out of my way let alone make them.

 

I do not believe anyone is going to go hungry because I don't have my foot flat on the loud pedal all the time.

 

Harvest time IS important and very often the windows of opportunity ARE very small but that does not give farmers any more rights on the road. It is not about how fast you can go it is about how fast you can stop.

 

Are you saying that you drive a tractor with a load the same way you'd drive in your car? I shouldn't have said make people get out of the way, more make my presence well known. All I'm saying is that cars should make way for any big machinery on the road, because it makes life easier and safer for everyone. The amount of cars I meet on the road who decide to make me squeeze past rather than them reversing 50yards is a joke

[treebloke]

[/b]

 

I find the 40/50kph tractors are in a way worse than a 30kph, at least a 30 is reletively easy to overtake on a short bit of road whereas the quicker are doing an annoying speed- not quite fast enough to get anywhere quickly but too quick to overtake unless you have a nice straight section.

I agree that tractors should have an MOT and I drive a tractor a lot on the road so I'm not bias. Not being able to tow a 3500kg trailer behind a pickup but then be able to tow 10ton legally behind a tractor is also madness. One or the other IMO

 

Problem with the 40/50kph is they are ok on flat and level but then dragged down to 20/30 on the hills quite often where you simply cannot get past.

 

I don't think MoT is really an issue, they do or should be in a roadworthy condition.

[treebloke]

HGV's should be doing 40mph on rural roads but most don't. The problem is people often work miles from home so rush along and the people driving tractors often have no where to pull over to allow passing. The cost of food would increase should more restrictions come to Agriculture. Training and roadside checks would help. VOSA active in Derbyshire.

 

This is often the issue, they travel miles as contractors or because the farm has been split up. By us all the old little pull ins have dissapeared over the years, there just isn't any where to let traffic past, the annoying thing is when the tractor driver passes one when he has a long long convoy behind now that is being an arse and does not help the situation.

[gensetsteve]

So if you have been towing 3.5 tonne of plant for 20 years with out problems or incident counts for nothing unless you have been on a days towing course.

 

 

 

Another classic. Also- indicating right to turn into the field. As you start to turn the wheel, the same BMW flies past you, having overtaken from five cars back.

 

I had a beauty on the A27 once. I was driving a telehandler down to Fareham, and some old duffer (presumably with 'grandpa rights' to tow a trailer) pulled in in front of me with the caravan. I braked so hard that I hit the windscreen. I should have just let the forks open the bloody thing up.

 

It's funny at first, then it starts to get to you. That same season some dozy bint found herself coming up way to fast behind a tractor and bale trailer, complete with beacon at rear of trailer. Panicked, went to swing out into the outer lane, but didn't quite make it. Unfortunately her friend was in the passenger seat, which went under the trailer. She ruined untold lives that night- killed her best friend, and the pigman (who was only driving the tractor because the weather was catching us) ended up in therapy for two years. If the boss hadn't pretty much forced him to keep his job for his mental wellbeing then I don't like to think what he might have done to himself.

[woody paul]

This is often the issue, they travel miles as contractors or because the farm has been split up. By us all the old little pull ins have dissapeared over the years, there just isn't any where to let traffic past, the annoying thing is when the tractor driver passes one when he has a long long convoy behind now that is being an arse and does not help the situation.

 

And when there is a straight piece of road you slow up and indicate they just follow you and do not go by you.

But what gets me going is near me they harvest a lot of potatoes and onions the tractor go like hell to get back to the field then sit there waiting to be filled.