I've always "hated" driving a tractor on roads

[tinner666]

We have horse drawn carriages, tractors, mowers and no telling what else running the roads near Farmville. No biggie. It's all about paying attention to your driving. Inattention is the killer.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I forgot to mention that in my county I know of 2 tractors struck by cars. Dads cousin back in the 90s was on his 8N going to a field. He had an escort that was behind him that was about 2 car lengths behind him. THey had their flashers on and also a light bar. A driver ran over the escort and hammered the escort truck and rammed it into the 8N. It flipped over backwards and pinned dads cousin under the tractors steering wheel. He died on the scene but was revived.


The second one that was hit was a friends uncle on a 3020 or 4020 JD. He was nearly to his turn off and a truck driver on a drug binge ran into him killing him instantly. What was bad he was chased by the law at the time. THey had plenty of places to stop the truck or clear traffic off the road but they all chose to chase. It was very sad that this incident happened.

 

[boggen]

was actually waiting for an accident yesterday. semi with flat bed trailer carrying a combine. doing any were from 35 to 50 MPH. trailer had extensions going down the side of it. so combine could be drove right up onto trailer. no escorts. rocks were flying dust was flying to point of white out condition of snow and visibility of only 20 feet. that stretched approx 400 feet behind him. i thought for sure a few vehicles coming the opposite direction were also going to bite it. that or some signs or mail boxes.

had a couple folks end up behind me. and as soon as they saw the dust and rock cloud. all of them backed off extremely quick. including myself and gave approx 1/4 mile gap between me and the rear end of the trailer.

it most likely would have been ok, if driver of the semi kept things down to say 30MPH or slower. but man. it was one of them situations, were you just wanted to get as far as you possibly could away from situation. and wished that i had a cell phone on hand.

 

[bcp]

Update on the original post:

Injured driver describes collision with tractor | The Columbian

...
According to a police report, Fairbanks said there was a plastic bag flying around in the car; Carroll turned to see what it was and didn't see the tractor in time to stop.

Carroll, however, says she was coming over a hill and looked at her speedometer for a couple of seconds. She slammed on her brakes when she saw a tractor in the right lane, but didn't have enough time to stop. The tractor's plow, she said, went through her windshield.
...
The tractor, which was carrying a plow on the back, had the required equipment for driving on the road, including a slow-moving-vehicle triangle, says Clark County Sheriff's Sgt. Fred Neiman. According to the police report, the tractor was in an area of the road where it could be seen for 1/3 of a mile.

Bruce

 

[LD1]

1/3 of a mile is a long way for visibility. If the car were going 60mph, that would have to mean that she wasnt paying attention for a good 20 seconds:confused2:

 

[horse7]

And what were the 2 passengers doing while this plastic bag was flying around? Looking at their ages one can imagine-- most people get a near miss when they are distracted and maybe learn their lesson, looks like this one wasn't a near miss.

 

[Renze]

looks like this one wasn't a near miss.

no indeed, it was a head-on

 

[tinner666]

Interesting thing happened today. On a busy divided 4 lane, Rt.1/Rt301 south of Richmond, Va, speed limit 45-50, a bunch of us came around a curve to find a Craftsman mower pulling a large trailer across the highway! Too busy dodging swerving cars to take a pic though!

 

[slowzuki]

I road my tractors a lot, probably a few hundred miles a year up to a thousand at very most. I'm always nervous in the CUT, don't mind so much up in the 100 hp MF. What a difference in respect the size increase makes. People will try to pass the Kubota anywhere (its a L5030HSTC with the R4's all the way out), the MF has its tires out wide to just about 102" wide, they tend to be more cautious and I'm more able to hit the shoulder at 25 mph when people missjudge.

 

[HCJtractor]

How about tire wear on R1 tires? Would a 20 mile round trip on asphalt cause significant wear? That's what concerns me our two properties are about 10 miles apart on lightly traveled roads. We always trailer but it's tempting to drive the tractor over occasionally. But I worry about wear.