Inconsiderate drivers and tractor operators, bad mix...

[5030]

This. I find just a little amusing.

One of the roads boardering my property goes to our ballfield and I see the bigger wins attitude a lot when I am out working that field.
What I find most interesting is that the guy with the smallest car won’t move, wait for anyone he just stays on his side of the road and honestly doesn’t seem to care if they hit him. I think his car is called a Yaris but it’s small compared to all the trucks and SUV’s we have come to expect around here.
Anyway to date that I know of he has ditched 4 trucks, 1 van and one 4 wheeler down there. He simply refuses to move to the side and as they get real close and realize he ain’t moving they panick and overshoot the road which gets one tire into the ditch.
This is then followed by the owner of the house on the end of the road coming down and giving the stuck driver a hard time for drivng way too fast past the houses to begin with (posted speed limit is15) I know he has also charged a couple excessive amounts to pull them out after he is done giving the tounge lashing. My neighbors boys came here looking for a tow when they got ditched and told me how much he wanted to pull them out. I let them sit there till thier father came home from work and then offered free towing to him only after the boys were reprimanded for blatantly speeding down the road to begin with!
Thier dad made them clear some overgrown bushes and a couple fallen dead trees on the boarder of our property as payment for the tow out of the ditch and never told them it was free!

Anyway, I wonder what would happen if you stayed your course as they realized they were going to hit you?

Kind of reminds me of when I borrow my buddy's Michigan articulated quarry loader (which I do rarely, it's the cats meow for piling manure for spreading) The Michigan is huge, has an 855 Cummins and the bucket is 12 feet wide and big enough to park a full sized car in. Just the tires are 10 feet high. Anyway, driving it down the road is always a treat. It's very big and imposing and hard to let opposing drivers by so like Richard, I just stop and wait until they figure out that one, I'm 5 times bigger and heavier than they are and two, I'm not moving over. After a fashion it dawns on them they need to back up to a driveway and pull in until I can get by. What amazes me is how long it takes some idiots to realize I could squash them like a bug. That thought has ran through my mind on more than one occasion.

Couple years back, he had me rebush the bucket pins. That was a job. Getting the linkage apart took a Gradall with a hook and chain on the end to dismantle it. Bushing weren't bad once it was apart.

I love playing with big machines.

 

[5030]

I detest any tribal and protectionist thinking. Always have. It's a very Ego Based, primitive way of thinking.

...........but it works when necessary.

 

[Reb954]

Years ago when I was operating cranes we had a number of bad experiences with cars, pickups and trucks. The cranes were rated from 60 ton to 90 ton, tire width was 11 ft. and the stripped weight was 96,000 lbs to 114,000 lbs on 4 axles. Most highways back then had 10' to 11' lanes plus shoulders so we were fine on those but some state and county roads only had 9' to 10' lanes with no shoulders so those were a challenge. Top speed on those cranes was 45 mph but average was 25 mph. On the narrow roads it was even less mph.

One day I was taking a crane to a job site on a county road that had 10' lanes and no shoulder. I saw a bobtail Haliburton pump truck coming the other direction and he wasn't slowing down. There was room to pass but not by much. I slowed to a stop, moved over to the edge of the road, set the maxi's and turned on my flashers. I also started flashing my head lights at him to slow down. He didn't, extra smoke started pouring out of his stack. I guess he thought he would force me off the road to make room for him.

Just before impact he turned off the road, down through the bar ditch and out through a field. He bounced around a lot, almost turned over several times before coming to a stop. Once he had stopped and was still upright I just went on my merry way. I always wondered what story he told when he got back to the yard.

 

[5030]

And in my state as of this year the "Zipper" method become state law. There has been a law in the books for years that amounted to a modified zipper method for interstate on ramps for years written in such a way that almost gives on ramps right of way.

Another of my 'pet peeves' People merging on the e-way. Last time I looked, the sign on the on ramp said 'YIELD', not SURRENDER.

It amazes me how many drivers go down an on ramp and STOP at the end instead of getting up to speed and MERGING with the flow of traffic, either that or attempt to merge into traffic at a speed much less than the traffic flow (and never use their turn indicators which I think are now optional on cars and trucks today....

Go like heck on country 2 lanes and drive like codgers when getting on the e-way.

Amazing.

 

[ultrarunner]

When I was born, a herd of 25-30 milking cows might support a family, with a stay at home mom, and payed for kids to go to college. In my teens 3-4 of those farm families no longer existed and their former (equivalent) 75-120 cows were now being milked by one family who could barely survive on it. Letç—´ say itç—´ roughly the same acreage being farmed, the same amount of milk being produced, but now it only supports one family. Now even many of those are gone, swallowed up. The land is producing less and less, maybe not when measured in crop tonnage and production, but when measured by how many families it supports.
What does that tell you?
The market demands it goes to more consolidation, smaller margins mean you have to produce more. Scaling up costs to do that mean fewer survivors.
Time to bring the The Grange back?

Mom's side were small dairy farmers for generations... as was everyone in their small rural community except for the blacksmith... they never had more than 25 producing milk cows plus chickens and hogs...

I cherish the two summers I was able to spend there as a child... it was a way of life that no longer exists... Grandparents never owned a car... Grandpa did have a motorcycle at one time but the old hand crank tractor was it and such an improvement over oxen and draft horses... even in 1970 they did not have a phone or TV... all the news was the farm report on the radio and twice weekly mail service.

Those small country roads had no traffic... you could count the cars on your fingers that passed on a typical day and the roads went from farm to farm...

Today the small roads are race tracks especially at night... Mom's uncle was walking across the road and killed by a speeding car... others have been hit and plenty of roadside memorials where drivers hit trees.

I'd say maybe 1 in 10 family of the family farms still farm there... the ones that do incorporate neighbors fields for hay and grass and market organic...

It was a sad day when the last cow was sold off and the family farm no longer was a farm... all the extended family could say is it was good the grandparents had already passed... because it would have killed them... over 200 years farming ended.

My cousin finds selling off land to be far more lucrative than farming ever was... he still has a beautiful Fendt Turbo Cab tractor with winch used to harvest a few select trees each year... but the livestock is long gone.

 

[paulfun9]

Another of my 'pet peeves' People merging on the e-way. Last time I looked, the sign on the on ramp said 'YIELD', not SURRENDER.

It amazes me how many drivers go down an on ramp and STOP at the end instead of getting up to speed and MERGING with the flow of traffic, either that or attempt to merge into traffic at a speed much less than the traffic flow (and never use their turn indicators which I think are now optional on cars and trucks today....

Go like heck on country 2 lanes and drive like codgers when getting on the e-way.

Amazing.

I have to agree that this is also one of my biggest peeves but for me it always seems the one who can’t merge onto the highway is almost always guilty of pulling out in front of you at the last possible moment from that side road just a mile before the on ramp and also has no concept that by only accelerating to 28 or 29 mph on a 45 or 50 mph road is the reason why all that nicely spaced traffic just backs up behind thier bumper instantly.

 

[mred2]

On the ramps, the cars on the interstate don't have 2 feet between them. There is no place to merge. I have to stop or go off the road. And with most of them going over 80 mph, I am sorry but most of the time I only travel the speed limit plus 5. Not 85 to 90.
And for all of you younger people, you will find someday that you wish things would slow down. Less stress, lower blood pressure, and trying to enjoy life a little slower. You may last a little longer.

 

[paulfun9]

Don’t think anyone is really saying anything about gridlock situations, more discussing a flowing open road. By the way I am purity old myself but that still doesn’t mean I can go tie up the roadway going slower than the posted limits and cutting people off. I actually would hand over my license if I get to the point I can’t drive safely amongst the traffic on the roads I travel.
Going 65 on a highway where everycar out there is going faster to me would actually make me the dangerous one as I would be causing a disruption on the road. Might not be right but I see it that way and find driving with the flow of traffic makes it a lot more relaxing and uneventful. When I do try and slow down to the speed limit I am constantly crowded by other traffic and almost without fail some person who hasn’t a clue starts jamming on the brake excessively causing some more confusion to the mix.
My father told me years ago when they first put the interstate in that he felt drivers should have to pass a special test and have thier cars display a special tag showing they are capeable of operation on a freeway. The longer I live and drive the more I tend to agree with him and think those who can’t handle free flowing traffic, speed matching and are unable to reasonably estimate speed of approaching or traffic they are approaching should not be allowed on the interstates.

Not trying to insult anyone but it is honestly how I feel. I have told many friends and family members straight out that they have no business ever getting on an on ramp, be it out here in the boonies or worse yet in and around the cities.

PS
One thing tha makes a driver not make a hole for a car to merge is when they are going way slower than the traffic. Coming in at the same speed makes it easy to create the hole for you. Having to brake hard to create that opening actually causes more havoc for everyone else.

 

[mred2]

The speed limit is suppose to be the max not the min.

 

[ovrszd]

The speed limit is suppose to be the max not the min.

I haven't paid any attention to the speed limit signs on our Interstate hiway for many years. Not meaning I speed. Just meaning I haven't looked at the signs.

They used to say 70 mph max, 40 mph min.

So if two cars are going down the Interstate. One going 75mph. One going 45mph. Which is the most dangerous?