I was following yet another farm tractor and trailer outfit today on a 60 mph limit road with some overtaking opportunities.
Problem was, the trailer was huge and high: I could just see the top of the drivers cap. The external mirrors of the tractor were invisible and there was no interior mirror that I could see.
Then we have the problem of no lighting board on the trailer. How can I safely overtake this dude who was travelling at about 20 mph when he could turn across me into a gateway at any time and chop me up. He could not possibly signal his intentions.
I waited for a long straight and, seeing no gateways on the right, dropped into second and overtook him. By this time there were perhaps 10 cars behind us.
I have spoken to some farmers about this and they say they don't have time to plug in a lighting board. Others just put on a notice saying NO SIGNALS.
(Read my mind)
Why are farmers allowed to get away with this totally incondsiderate and dangerous behaviour?
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this is much safer behaviour than doing 35 in a 30 didnt you know ?
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Where was this Alwyn?
Followed one down the A5 in Northants early morning (still dark) apparently showing nothing but white spots at the rear!!.
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Simon,
Location? Going towards Newmarket in Flintshire North Wales. Happens all the time up here.
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They get away with it for the same reason that many of us living in rural areas don't bother now with reporting minor incidents of crime. There is virtually no rural policing in my bit of Warwickshire and even things like housebreaking and theft of expensive items go uninvestigated. I work from home and am generally around during the day, yet when two of my neighbours whom I overlook from my office were burgled on separate occasions, no policeman bothered to come and ask if I had seen anything suspicious.
To be fair to farmers (I'm from a farming family, after all) trailers have been getting increasingly modern over recent years and come equipped with proper lighting which is easily maintained. By and large, it is their best and most efficient equipment that farmers prefer to use but older tackle gets used, particularly around harvest when the pressure is on. The regulations on older trailers are complicated and the requirements are based on age. If the trailer you saw was based on the chassis of a World War II lorry then the farmer was perfectly entitled to have no lights and, just as serious, no brakes. In fact, much more recent trailers need not be braked or equipped with lighting and signalling. There is a Government publication covering the requirements which may even be available through the DEFRA website if you hunt long enough.
Impressed by some of the modern tractors you see. Consider the Fastrac built by JCB and copied by others. Perfectly legal Fastracs with extremely efficient braked and lit trailers have long been making daily round trips of several hundred miles in Scotland, at least, because road hauliers (very often from a farming background) found they can travel at up to 40mph with these units and not pay the road taxes for HGVs. Did someone mention red diesel?
Back to your point about trailers. Some Chief Constables in very rural areas--Grampian is one--like to clamp down on farmers from time to time and will have special purges on tractor lighting, trailers and loading, particularly if tractors are being used to transport livestock to and from market, but they are the exception. In the main, the police like to maintain good relations with farmers because they are generally pretty observant of who is doing what in the countryside. I couldn't possibly comment on the suggestion that some senior officers are partial to a spot of shooting when the season comes along.
Finally, one daft thing is that slow-moving tractors (sub-20mph, I think) are obliged to display a flashing amber light when travelling on dual carriageways. Very sensible except that the obligation is to put the lamp on the tractor not the fully loaded trailer obscuring the fact you are approaching a 10mph 10 tonne object and not the normal HGV it appears from the driving seat.
David
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The trouble with the flashing light is, when mounted on the right, you get so used seeing it for a few miles that you do not see the right hand indication coming on, meaning I am going to dive through an unlikely hole in the hedge the second you start overtaking, taking you with me (not me, actually, but it could have been).
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David,
So this madness could be legal?
And yet a farmer friend of mine was stopped from driving his Landrover and a trailer loaded with stirks on the A55 as the police thought it would be travelling too slowly.
They stopped him as he drove towards the on-slip and told him to use another route.
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I assume it is a typo, but if it isn't ...
What IS a stirk?
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There used to be a daft excemption that allowed a Farmer to travel in between fields he farmed without having to dispaly lights. I lost a case (defending a carelss driving rap against a driver who collided with said trailer) when I was a young whippersnapper. This was before rural Bench and it still stings nearly 20
years later. This was a gross miscarraige, but the driver didn't want to go to appeal.
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No use me having lights on the trailer, the tractor hasn't got indicators.
David
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Ian - I can't quite believe I al ready have the opportunity to "steer" ***
you, of all people, towards Webster's Dictionary! A "stirk" is a Scottish word for a young bullock or heifer, derived from the Gaelic word "steór", also the origin of a "steer".
Ronnie
*** Motoring link
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Sounds like a load of bullocks to me.
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Or hummicks, as they say in parts of Sussex
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Ian
Hummicks? Surely that's what sailors used to sleep in! Or do you mean Hassocks? Sorry, that's what priests wear .... no, it's not .... Oh! Cassox!
DD
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And what about a registration plate?
Civil engineers rarely have them and when they do they are'nt for the towing vehicle!
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